Day 40: The Summer of His Face Shining Upon Us- Psalm 40

Day 40 – Join Johnny Enlow for a 67-day walk through Psalms.

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OUT OF THE PIT

Key Verse: “He has put a new song in my mouth— Praise to our God; Many will see it and fear, And will trust in the Lord.” (v.3)

Key Theme: After 2 chapters of more despair than hope, David has been lifted out.

Key Descriptives of God: God of Wonders (v.5) Helper; Savior; (v.17)

When we left off yesterday in Psalm 39, David was learning important things but still in a bad place. That needs to be said again. David was learning important things but still in a bad place. Never waste a “bad place” pit. Now beginning with the very first two verses he tells it all. 

“I WAITED patiently for the Lord; And He inclined to me, And heard my cry. He also BROUGHT ME UP out of a horrible pit, Out of the miry clay, And set my feet upon a rock, And established my steps.”

Honestly, this verse alone would be more than a full devotional. There are 7 nuggets of gold to be explored and each is a treasure trove of revelation. #1. I WAITED patiently.  #2. He INCLINED to me.  #3. He HEARD my cry. #4. He brought me UP AND OUT.  #5. MIRY CLAY  #6. SET my feet   #7. ESTABLISHED MY STEPS.  The capitalized word is what you can look up and explore to continue the treasure hunt on your own. For now, I want us to just look at the word WAITED and the Hebrew word QAVAH that is used in the original.

QAVAH: “To wait, look for, hope, expect”. A primitive root meaning “To bind together— by twisting. A rope.” i.e. “To twist your little strand into His master strand.”

This word is so key for the whole “out of the pit” process. It is not a wait of exasperation. It is a patient expectant wait. That is why EXPECT and HOPE might be better words. True HOPE is not wishful thinking. True HOPE is “the expectation of good from God in the immediate circumstance.” Please read that definition again. A person of deep hope then expands that into “The expectation of good from God— in EVERY situation.”

TWISTING YOUR HOPE INTO HIS

Now see the picture of your rope of rescue being completed. Call it a rope of hope. You have to twist and weave your strand of hope into His. That is why you “QAVAH patiently”. It is a process and it requires intentionality. You tell Him you trust Him. Your strand—  of orphan-minded self-help—  you twist into Him as you tell yourself- “I trust in Him.” You are in a slippery miry clay of despondence that you can’t get out of with your own flimsy strand of rope and so at every turn you recommit to Him. He is INCLINED to you because you have pulled on Him through this twisting into Him. Then you become aware that He HEARD you. Suddenly He is pulling you UP AND OUT and placing you on a solid ROCK of experiential trust in Him. Here your STEPS of destiny are ESTABLISHED. Now the key verse 3.

A NEW SONG

“He has put a new song in my mouth.” All of a sudden you are “singing a new tune”. You have ditched your tune of despair or even your tune of what God HAS done into what God IS doing. It is why He wants us constantly as the church finding the new worship songs that declare what God is PRESENTLY opening up to us. Notice He puts the NEW song in our MOUTH. Yes, that is the word PEH we have been talking about in 5780, “The Year of the Mouth.” The new praise that comes out in a 2020 season of contradiction and despair then leads to a move of God that “many will see”, “and fear” (meaning “reverence, honor, reverence, respect, be awed”), and will put their trust in God. This is what breaks out when we twist into Him as we are under duress. Personal revival comes. Collective revival can come.

GOD OF WONDERS

“Many, O Lord my God, are Your WONDERFUL works” (v.5). The word “wonderful” in Hebrew is PALA. It means “wondrous, marvelous, distinguishing, surpassing, miracles, extraordinary”. This is who He is. Once we have been secured and rescued by our HOPE ROPE our mouth is moved to sing, declare and prophesy out of that place. “Blessed is the man that MAKES the Lord His trust.” (v.4) You don’t check to FEEL if He seems trustworthy — you MAKE Him your trust. The rope twisting thing. You are now blessed to experience the God of Wonders.

INNUMERABLE THOUGHTS

“And your thoughts towards us cannot be recounted to You in order; If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.” (v.5)  

Just that He would have any thoughts, personally, towards us is so worth meditating on and being strengthened by. He is our original parent. He who designed us with some of these “thoughts” is incapable of failing/rejecting us as our natural parents often have. We were entrusted to our natural parents but He is our source parent. He is our ultimate “safety net” in life and we are so always on His mind that we could not even collect and archive all His thoughts for us individually. They can not be numbered. When we get a revelation of that it will secure us even more on a non-slippery ROCK. 

WHAT ABOUT THE SEX TRAFFICKED?

The Lord is reminding me that this year many of you/us have been challenged in an unusual way as we have discovered the widespread nature of both sex trafficking and pedophilia. Where was/is God? Then the deadly connection. If He is not there for others maybe He is not really there for us. He would have you know that His innumerable thoughts have also been for all of them. He would say, wait until you see how much He was there for them in their trials and how He wipes every tear and memory of devastating abuse. He has done more here and He will do more there than you can imagine. The first martyr Stephen seemed so abused and mistreated and alone in his last minutes on earth one could second guess God’s care for him. Yet what maybe no one else really knew was that he was seeing an open heaven and Christ personally cheering him on (Acts 7:55, 56). That’s significantly better than an epidural during childbirth. We are all going to love our God, even more, when we have seen the full picture of His care — here and there— for those who have suffered tremendously. If we can imagine a goodness that we would do, where do we think we get that from? He will outdo us because He is way more invested in every single one of us than we can possibly imagine. “Eye hath not seen”.

I FINALLY UNDERSTAND

Well, we made it through verse 5. Verse 6, is amazing as David has advanced New Testament revelation that burnt offerings and sin offerings were not God’s ideal. It has always been about the heart. “I delight to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is within my heart” (v.8). I like how all of this is said in the NLT, “Now that you have made me listen, I finally understand” (v.6). Doesn’t this seem applicable to this whole chapter? Life?

LET GOD BE MAGNIFIED

Time has disallowed us covering the last 9 verses, but I do have to insert as our final nugget verse 16 and a practical way we can look into His shining face today. “Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; Let such as love Your salvation say continually, THE LORD BE MAGNIFIED!”  This is what brings the shine back to our face.

 

 

Written by: Johnny Enlow

Featured Image by chris ganser on Unsplash


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The 67 Day Countdown Series is brought to you by Johnny and Elizabeth Enlow, founders of Restore7 ministry, as well as international speakers and best-selling authors. Among Johnny’s books are The Seven Mountain Prophecy, The Seven Mountain Mantle, Rainbow God, The Seven Mountain Renaissance, Becoming A Superhero, and RISE. Elizabeth serves as CEO and penned Rainbow God: The Seven Colors of Love and God in Every Season.

The views and opinions expressed by Kingdom Winds Collective Members, authors, and contributors are their own and do not represent the views of Kingdom Winds LLC.

About the Author

Kingdom Winds Contributors - Johnny and Elizabeth Enlow are social reformers at heart, as well as international speakers and authors of The Seven Mountain Prophecy, The Seven Mountain Mantle, and Rainbow God. As ones focused on the reformation of the 7 primary areas of culture, they are spiritual mentors to many in Media, Arts and Entertainment, Government, Family, Religion, Economy, and Education. Their passion is to awaken our generation to the reality of the God of all of life, Who not only cares for our souls but also has practical solutions to offer through His sons and daughters for every problem that exists in society.