This week’s Song To Live By is Psalm 34

Alex writes:

Growing up, I thought my mum's chocolate cake was one of the best tasting things on this planet. I would tell this to friends and guests, but it would be understandable if they didn't believe me. There is lots of cake in the world and maybe they thought any child would think their mum's cake is the best. However, once they themselves had tasted the cake, they were able to agree that the cake was indeed one of the tastiest things around.

Psalm 34 offers us an encouragement that a life lived with God is life where we lack nothing and we are each invited to 'taste and see that the Lord is good'. We are encouraged not to settle for a second hand experience of God but to seek him personally each day.

David is writing this Psalm from a place of personal weakness, having just had to pretend he was insane to escape persecution. It's from that place of weakness that he has the clarity to see that the Lord is closest when we are most desperate for him.

In verses 9-10 we read: 'Fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing. The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.

This is a wonderful assurance for us today. The world around us trains us to believe that we do lack many things. Advertising tells us we lack the right clothes. Social media tells us we lack the right experiences. Films tell us we lack the right relationships. The world around us whispers to us down 100 different avenues that if we only had the right clothes, experiences, relationships, we would be satisfied. Experience shows us however that trying to find life to the full in these things will lead to our appetites never being satisfied.

This Psalm's answer is different. It tells us that it is those who fear (or revere/ respect) the Lord who will lack no good thing. Fearing the Lord is about recognising he is worthy of our attention and realising that he is the only one who can truly satisfy us.

Throughout this Psalm, there are invitations to 'take refuge', 'fear', 'call', 'seek' and 'cry out' to the Lord. We're assured that in doing so he will hear us, we will lack no good thing, we will be saved from our troubles. But we on our part need to seek him. There may be days where we have a head knowledge of God's word and his presence, but this Psalm pushes us not to settle for an intellectual knowledge of the Lord but to 'seek' him. It's in the seeking that we find he is the one who satisfies, he is the one who redeems us, he is the one who is 'saves those who are crushed in Spirit.'

Today, let's choose to personally seek the Lord, and taste ourselves that he is good.

A Prayer
Father God, I thank you for the promises in this Psalm. That you deliver your people from all their troubles, that you save us when we're crushed in Spirit, and that those who fear you lack nothing. I pray today that you would meet us each and every time we seek you, whether we feel your presence or not. Would you strengthen us by your Spirit to persevere in our pursuit of you when physically or emotionally we feel at our end. In Jesus name we pray, Amen