The Daily Psalm

The Daily Psalm: A Devotional by Mark D. Roberts, encouraging prayer based on the Psalms. Learn how to pray the Psalms.

Friday, March 24, 2006

The twenty-first day of Lent.

Hear, O my people, while I admonish you;
O Israel, if you would but listen to me!

Psalm 81:8

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Psalm 81

0 To the leader: according to The Gittith. Of Asaph.
1 Sing aloud to God our strength;
  shout for joy to the God of Jacob.
2 Raise a song, sound the tambourine,
  the sweet lyre with the harp.
3 Blow the trumpet at the new moon,
  at the full moon, on our festal day.
4 For it is a statute for Israel,
  an ordinance of the God of Jacob.
5 He made it a decree in Joseph,
  when he went out over the land of Egypt.
I hear a voice I had not known:
6 “I relieved your shoulder of the burden;
  your hands were freed from the basket.
7 In distress you called, and I rescued you;
  I answered you in the secret place of thunder;
  I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah
8 Hear, O my people, while I admonish you;
  O Israel, if you would but listen to me!
9 There shall be no strange god among you;
  you shall not bow down to a foreign god.
10 I am the LORD your God,
  who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
  Open your mouth wide and I will fill it.
11 “But my people did not listen to my voice;
  Israel would not submit to me.
12 So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts,
  to follow their own counsels.
13 O that my people would listen to me,
  that Israel would walk in my ways!
14 Then I would quickly subdue their enemies,
  and turn my hand against their foes.
15 Those who hate the LORD would cringe before him,
  and their doom would last forever.
16 I would feed you with the finest of the wheat,
  and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”

Daily Prayer (based on Psalm 81:8)

Dear Lord, here I catch a glimpse of Your heart for Your people. Not only do You want us to listen to You, but also You desire it. Your heart aches for our attention. You want us to hear You so that we might walk aright, and so that You might richly bless us.

How often, I wonder, have You thought, "O Mark, if you would but listen to me!"? And how often have I ignored Your voice, preferring to follow my own wisdom and walk in my own ways? Forgive me, Lord, for my insensitivity to You, for my unconscious and sometimes even conscious rejection of Your voice. Teach me to listen to You as You speak: in Scripture, in community, and through the "still, small voice" of Your Spirit. Give me, Gracious God, a longing for Your voice that reflects Your desire to speak to me.

Postscript

"The clause which follows, O Israel! if thou wilt hearken to me, is, I presume, an abrupt expression, similar to what is frequently employed in pathetic discourses, the ellipse serving to express the greater earnestness. . . . [It is] the language of regret on the part of God. He indirectly intimates that he distrusts this obstinate and rebellious people, and can hardly indulge the hope that they will prove obedient and teachable."

John Calvin, Commentary on Psalm 81

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The Scripture text used in The Daily Psalm is from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved