Good morning, Zane.
I’m choosing to overwhelm you with double devotionals. My reason is that the archive file for today’s date from 2012 and 2013 reveal such a similarity of theme. 2012 is from the New Testament and 2013 is from the Old Testament. Hope you can check it out and make some determinations of your own.
I’m doing a little logging operation on our own place—taking down some standing dead cedars on our property beside the creek. I’m very sad with this spectacle of seeing all our beautiful cedars dying. On the other hand, I think the quality of logs will be adequate to allow me to mill them to fill a pressing order for cedar ceiling paneling. I'm sticking on a photo that shows Thano atop the first tree along with the two dogs.
Have a great day. Love and prayers—Tua/Ray.
We are given here another piece of insight into the core cause for David’s greatness. Lesser men might have allowed the wonderful “word of the LORD” (7:4) that came through the prophet Nathan to feed their narcissism—“Look at me! I am so wonderful and special so as to become irresistible to God. He loves me more than all others. So, all you inferior ones had better listen to me.” Instead, David, without any divine order to do so, without a preacher directing the altar call, without a choir background, without an organ playing, without any special lighting, without a padded pew or stained glass window, without a crowd of people around him—he simply sought a quiet place to be alone with God. No pretense, no showing off, no rehearsing a memorized prayer, no ceremony—just alone with God—with unction to worship. Nathan, however, walked in about then and clicked on his micro-recorder and captured David’s prayer. How else could it have been so nicely transcribed and made 12 verses long? Just kidding. But exactly how these private experiences are put into writing for public view is another question that will just have to wait to be answered.
I count seven times in this prayer by David that the phrase “O Sovereign LORD” is used to address The Sovereign LORD. There are several other very similar expressions. That concise phrase is overflowing with meaning. It puts things into proper perspective—unless it is just a platitude—just a show of Pharisaical verbosity. If flowing out of an honest HEART AFTER GOD, it excludes pride, arrogance, and superiority—it recognizes that I have nothing that was not given me—it recognizes that no matter how humanly powerful and famous I may become, I am still an underling, very dependent upon the “Sovereign LORD.” Far too many in positions of government power seem to get things all messed up by regarding themselves as the Sovereign Lords over everyone else. Of course, all the thinking underlings know better.
I don’t wish to unduly hassle you, but I think this is an appropriate question for personal evaluation: When is the last time you were “shut in with God, in a secret place—there in the Spirit beholding His face—gaining new power to run in the race?” To what degree have you nurtured a “love to be shut in with God?”
I sense we are touching on a very IMPORTANT principle in the life of every true child of God. Please don’t let this get by you. It has to do with seeking a daily solitary place for the purpose of communing with the Father. That priority of life motivated Jesus to avoid the natural interference and distractions of daily living and rise before others. I have learned that this is not just a nice little idea—it is essential for me in order to maintain my focus on things IMPORTANT. And I am convinced that seeking FIRST the Kingdom of God and His righteousness is IMPORTANT above all else. Two IMPORTANT Questions:
Life is full of circumstances that will prevent a retreat to an actual solitary place. In some cases, there may be none available. That’s when the earnest believer will do well to be creative toward securing the next best thing. Exactly how that private communion with the Father is achieved is not as important as that, by some means, IT IS ACHIEVED. The weight of Jesus’ example should be enough to motivate us to seek and maintain this priority. If He, the Son of God in flesh, sensed a need to be “shut in with God in a secret place,” how much more should we?