Scripture:
Psalms 9:1, 2 “I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. I will be glad and exult in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.”
Reflection:
I spent some time with my 2-year-old grandson this past week and have a confession to make. I think I have undone some of the work his mother has done in teaching him his numbers by counting down from 10, rather than up. We got him a “rocket tent” and played “blast off” repeatedly. Blast off is where Elijah and I would count down from 10 ultimately shouting “blast off” while I shake the tent to his screams of joy!
I love how “in the moment” a two-year-old lives. It doesn’t really matter what happened even ten minutes ago, because what is happening now is the most important thing that matters. Maybe that is why Jesus said that “Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” I think that God’s sovereign reign happens more “in the moments” of our day than we often recognize.
The manner in which King David admonishes himself in Psalms 9 is much more childlike than I think our adult nature would typically lean. He encourages Israel as King, by admonishing himself to “give thanks with his whole heart. How many times do I fail to give thanks with my whole heart, yet here is a king of a nation reminding himself of its importance?
He then says he will “recount all of your [God’s} wonderful deeds.”
If I take time to remember God’s deeds, it usually is only one or two. Yet to recount his wonderful deeds not only means more than one or two but again and again. For us to truly recount something, we need to relate or narrate the details, share the story, and recite the context of the wonderful deeds again and again. Recounting is way more than remembering! It’s remembering “out loud,” with the color and focus that truly highlight the wonderful deeds of our God. It is what my grandson wants when I tell him a story. He wants to imagine with me the signs and sounds of the story.
King David goes on to say; “I will be glad and exult in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.” A heart attitude like this is why the Bible says that King David was “a man after God’s own heart,” not once, but twice.
One side note as I close this devotional. The name of God that David uses in this Psalm in calling God Most High, is El Elyon. It means God is the most elevated of the elevated, the most supreme of the supreme, and the most powerful of the powerful and as such, His authority transcends all. It is the very same phase that the angel Gabriel used when proclaiming to Mary, “You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of [El Elyon] the Most High God.
Let’s be people after God’s own heart. Let’s recount his wonderful deeds. Let’s sing praise to El Elton, the Most High God.
Amen!
David
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