Home Proverbs For in you, O Lord, I hope

For in you, O Lord, I hope

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By Pr Isaiah White

The life of King David is amazing to study and reflect upon. His experiences and how he reacted is very inspirational for most of us living today.

When he was still a young boy, God announced that He had given him a kingdom.

At the age of 12, he participated in war and killed Goliath; while as an adult youth, he mobilised his fellows and launched a guerrilla war against the kingdom of Saul.

He succeeded in capturing some part of the kingdom and was declared King in Hebron, and ruled for seven years.
He had many wives and children born to him during this time.

When his opposition was taken away, he took over Jerusalem as his city and was in charge of the entire kingdom.

He fought many battles with the enemies around him, and years after he had become king, he decided to stay at home instead of going into battle.

This caused him problems, which steered him to write a penitential (repentant) Psalm, from where we got our verse this month.

Penitential Psalms
Psalms 38 is one of the seven Penitential Psalms.These Psalms are sometimes called ‘confession Psalms’ and they express sorrow as a consequence of sin, the desire for repentance and removal of the source of affliction.

Unlike Psalms 51 where David was repenting his sin, in Psalms 38, he was asking God to deal with the consequence of his sin.

In 2 Samuel 11-12 after David committed adultery, Prophet Nathan announced that the child got from this adultery would not survive.

David pleaded with God to heal his child, and it is within this Psalm that David said: “For in You, O LORD, I hope; You will hear, O Lord my God” (Psalms 38:15).

Hope in the offended
In Psalms 38:1-3, David says: “O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger. Do not discipline me in your rage! Your arrows have struck deep, and your blows are crushing me. Because of your anger, my whole body is sick; my health is broken because of my sins.”

He was guilty of at least two sins: adultery and murder. And now he was face to face with the consequences of his sinning.

He had nowhere to run to, but to the same God he had sinned against. His hope was placed in the God he had offended.

In the sinful world, it is difficult to hope in the law that you have violated.

All we can expect from a violated law is the justice that it administers to the criminals.

No criminal has hope beyond punishment from the law and the Judge. As criminals under the law, we can only hope to be punished and given what we deserve; that is the equal punishment of our sin.

In Psalms 38, however, David reminds us that his hope placed in God is not a hope for justice; he does not seek justice.

David defeated the giant Goliath because he had his hope and trust in God. (Source/IW.ORG)

Hope for 2022
The times we live in are troubled. These are pandemic days and that is not to mention the already existing diseases both curable and incurable.

People lose their jobs, businesses and fail, natural catastrophes, and uncertainty in what the future holds.

In today’s economy, there is little to hope for the future. Many of us have placed our hope in politicians, resources of our nations, education and connections, but all this has not helped.

We are now in a new year but unfortunately, most of us have placed our hopes in a year.

Some of us are like David because we have suffered the past years. All we can do now is to hope in God who knows and holds the future.

Faith and hope in God
David placed his hope in God because he had faith in Him.

Hope in God is not medicine that treats a patient who does not believe in both the medicine and the doctor, it is a product of faith.

Faith in God through Christ by the Spirit, raises Christian hope.

Faith and hope bear an intimate relation to one another (Romans 4:18–21; 5:2; 15:13, Galatians 5:5, Ephesians 1:18–19; Colossians 1:23; 1 Timothy 4:10, Hebrews 11:1; 1 Peter 1:21).

Faith is the foundation of hope; so, hope without faith is no hope at all.

We believe in God to give us hope in what we believe. But faith also returns to hope to give it the courage to persevere.

If faith apprehends God’s promises, hope expects what He promises.

In times of trouble, despair, and suffering, faith and hope feed on God and His promises.

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