v.9 “O righteous God, who searches minds and hearts”
- God doesn’t just look at external actions, but He looks at the heart. This is both encouraging and sobering.

There are certainly times in our genuine walk with God where we will royally screw up (e.g. David) and we certainly pay a price, but overall God still acknowledges our overall desire to love and honor Him. And so He speaks His forgiveness into our repentant hearts and encourages us to keep moving on

And there are other times when we do a lot of “good” acts (serve the church, love our neighbor, speak out against wrong), but our heart motives may be corrupted by sin: pride, vanity, self-righteousness, judgmentalism, etc And on the Final Day all the distorted motives behind the “good” and “holy” acts will be revealed.

Lord, continue to examine my heart each day. May I never be too prideful or blind to admit that many times my heart motive is just trying to fool everyone including myself. And may I never be so self-centered that when I screw up I would forget to stop beating myself up over it and listen to hear your forgiving encouragement.

v. 2: Be gracious! It feels selfish but it exalts God when we look to Him as the master of our circumstances. We of course must avoid the “prosperity gospel” feel to our faith, but there is something about having your back to the wall that makes crying out for our Father seem like the right instinct to draw on.

v. 8-9: David has such great confidence in God’s listening of his prayer. I love this. Sometimes I still have a karmic view of God, as if my prayers offered in a selfish, childish instinct aren’t going to be heard because God may scoff at my immaturity. But David basically tells the rest of the world, “my Daddy has heard my cries, and now everyone else is in trouble”.

There’s something childish and immature about it, but also something that really seems right. David is not ashamed of my childish prayers, nor is he embarrassed of a brazen confidence in the one who answers.

I shall go and do, and have gone and done, likewise. =)

Prayer is an interactive conversation with a real Person. Lately this is something that hasn’t been as real for me as it has in years past. I know part of it has to do with the fact that “prayer” really isn’t mentioned much in my current church and is not a significant aspect of that ministry. But part of it too is that it is a spiritual discipline that has fallen to the wayside, because it is so “unnatural” to my human nature. May God restore that discipline into my daily life and show His hand moving around me once again~

v.4 “you cannot tolerate the sins of the wicked”
- sin is still a sin. no matter what type it is, or what the local subculture defines it as. it all leads to the same Cross.

v.7 “I will worship at your Temple with deepest awe”
- intimacy with God is the essence of the Christian walk. when that is lacking, “Christianity” just becomes a “religion”. I need more “awe”.

v.11 “that all who love your name may be filled with joy”
- it is all about the Person of God

am i so desperate for vision today? do i yearn for God to lead me in the right path, lest i perish otherwise?

v. 11-12: i love that here we see “the godly” as those who “take refuge in you”. what an incredible definition of godliness: those who take refuge in the Lord. we think of godliness as piety or purity, but here we see that it is simply those who run to God for safety, for help, whose hearts are alive with worship when they cry out for God’s shield on their lives.

wow.

My prayer for this weekend, to find a refreshing joy and gladness in my heart through an intimacy with the Person of God, independent of my physical circumstances

v. 4: Meditate in your heart on your bed, and be still. I want to know much more about this verse, if there was a Jewish tradition of meditation before sleeping, etc.

v. 8: there is great safety in the Lord. I think His trustworthiness doesn’t get old, but it’s hard to buy into nevertheless.

“Arise, SAVE ME O God!” Let this be a cry that rises from my heart as well.

One thing that David does is ask God to shine his face upon him, as that would bring joy and gladness to his heart during this time. I guess this verse spoke to me as my supervisor mentioned to me at our weekly meeting that I looked jaded at work. So I explained to him my how demeanor seems to lend to that observation. But it made me think of what kind of impression that I’m giving to others because of my countenance, and how that would give a bad impression about being a follower of Christ. Work is fine for me, maybe I’m just bummed out b/c I’m still single? I dunno, but I pray that God would indeed shine his glory upon, that I would be able to see it, and be filled with awe and wonder like a kid at the beach playing in the sand.

David’s current heart-wrenching predicament is a direct result of the Bathsheba/Uriah incident years earlier. here I see both the Holiness of God and the Grace of God, both a picture of the Love of God

1) Holiness, in that God makes it clear that there are consequences to every sinful act.
- v.6 “ten thousands of people who have set themselves against me”

2) Grace, in that God will still show David mercy and rescue him.
- v.4 “I was crying to the LORD with my voice, and He answered me from His holy mountain”

3a) Love, in that God does not ignore sin and uses it’s consequences to teach His children about its destructive nature.

3b) Love, in that God does not let the powerful nature of sin completely destroy His children, even though we all deserve it.