Day 120 – Psalm 102-104

Talking Points

• These psalms praise God, remembering His great compassion. The nation is facing His just punishments, suffering in them, and yet, the psalmist takes hope that God is gracious and merciful.
• One of the goals of the songs is for future generations to know the cost and suffering of sin, and that God saved them out of the punishment for that sin. Over and over, we hear the echoes of the gospel!
• Once again, we cannot understand God’s grace, patience, and compassion apart from an understanding of the righteous justice of our holy God.
• The psalmist is overwhelmed in worship as he considers God’s greatness, power, and compassion. “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name (104:1). The natural response to considering God should be heartfelt, extravagant worship.
• A profound view from God’s perspective: He remembers that we are but dust. How wonderful is that? How humbling is that? While we may sometimes have delusions of grandeur, God sees us as we are — frail, forgetful, sinful people. And, to those people, He kindly shows compassion. What an awesome God!

Thoughts

Our schedules are full. Our notification chimes ring out. Our newsfeed never pauses. Emails, texts, PMs, calls all compete, fighting for our attention, devouring our time. Our free time is spent moving from the small screens in our hands to the big ones on our walls. The space of our minds is full.

In the midst of these great psalms of praise, there is one line that convicts me. The psalmist says, “Let my meditation be pleasing to Him…” (104:34). The word for meditation translates, “occupying thoughts, musings, or things considered.” It means the things that fill our heads. The word for pleasing literally translates, “sweet.” Get this. God desires the thoughts consuming our minds to be sweet to Him — not to us, but to Him. Are they? Even remotely?

I wonder how our attitudes and actions would change, if the thoughts we let overwhelm were pleasing to God. I wonder if our hearts would be softer, were our thoughts sweet before God. I wonder if we would be less anxious, less depressed, less agitated, sleeping better, if the cares of the world weren’t pouring into our minds. More than that, I wonder if God would be honored, if His people had minds that were sweet to Him.

“Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.” Philippians 4:8