Day 74 with David: A faithful heart awakens praise.

“My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast; I will sing and give praise. Awake, my glory! Awake, lute and harp! I will awaken the dawn. I will praise You, O Lord, among the peoples; I will sing to You among the nations. For Your mercy reaches unto the heavens, And Your truth unto the clouds.”

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭57:7-10‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

So, I’ll start with a disclaimer. It is true that people are fickle about a lot of things. It is also true that when things are going bad, it tends to paint everything in your life toward negativity, uncertainty, and so on. However, no amount of adversity will generally provoke a reaction of contempt for things we have always loved. Think about it: you’ve had bad things happen in your life; but if you love your house and home, you didn’t suddenly look around and say, “I hate this place.” If you have a precious pet, you didn’t suddenly look at that animal and think, “What use are you to me?” If you have a loving family and things begin to go wrong at your job or you’re sick, you don’t look at your loving family and suddenly despise them. So, why is it that many times when adversity comes, people turn against the Lord? Is our appreciation of the Lord based on whether or not He has checked all the boxes for us today?

I think the truth is that when things go wrong, we blame the Lord for it. And, if we think that He is responsible for the bad things going on in our life, we do not feel motivated to praise Him. It’s kind of like the impudent child screaming, “I hate you!” to the parent who has displeased them.

You are probably familiar with the trials of Job. As if things weren’t bad enough for him, at one point, his own wife encouraged him to curse God and die. His response to her should serve as an indictment toward the fickle-hearted:

“So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And he took for himself a potsherd with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes. Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!” But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.”

‭‭Job‬ ‭2:7-10‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

I will not take this time to enter into a discussion about original Sin, our own bad decisions, and the myriad other factors having to do with why bad things happen to us. I will just say, God is good and worthy to be praised. Now, it is certainly true that we do not understand everything that happens in our lives. But nothing that happens to us should affect our love toward our Father and our praise toward Him.

On the 11th day of our “100 Days with David,” we talked about the fact that God wants our whole heart; but, He also wants our heart to be steadfast or faithful. You see, a steadfast heart toward the Lord has already settled the issue of whether He is good or not; it has already settled the issue of whether or not He can be trusted; it has already settled the issue of whether or not we are secure in His love. Therefore, the steadfast heart is never moved away from praise when we face adversity.

In our portion from Psalms today we see David declaring the steadfastness of his heart before the Lord and then instructing his own spirit to bring forth praise. It’s important to note that he wrote this in the midst of great pressure and adversity from his enemies. We find David often mentioning the steadfastness of his heart in his psalms. And, his steadfast heart, always awakened praise toward the Lord.

If adversity in your life has silenced your praise, perhaps the problem is a heart that is not faithful or steadfast. If that is the case, ask the Lord to forgive you for having a fickle heart and ask Him to make it faithful. Then, open your mouth and give Him praise!

For today let us know and understand what David knew:

A faithful heart awakens praise.

#100dayswithdavid