MUSINGS

“MY GOD” Psalm 71 gives us the holy desires, and the communion with God, of an old believer. He looks back over his life to the day of his birth and uses this remarkable expression in speaking to Jehovah—“From the bowels of my mother thou didst draw me forth”. We are familiar with the thought of God as the Creator of heavens and earth, but have we thought sufficiently of His personal part in the birth of each one of His own? His hand it was that first touched us. What love and interest entered into that! What would have been His thoughts in the earliest moments of our existence? Surely that the life just commencing might unfold and develop for His pleasure, that we might be drawn to Jesus, receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and thus be in the favoured circle of the saints, and be witnesses for Christ here.

Are we answering to His desires for us? Have we responded in love’s obedience? The writer of Psalm 71 was facing opposition and testing, but He confides in God. He prays, “Be to me a rock of habitation, whereunto I may continually resort”; He knows God as “my rock and my fortress”. Though in deep dependence he is in holy boldness—“as for me, I will hope continually, and will praise thee yet more and more”. He reviews his history with God—“O God, thou hast taught me from my youth … Now also, when I am old … forsake me not, until I have proclaimed thine arm unto this generation”. That is, he is calling upon God that his testimony might be completed, that the life which had begun under God’s hand might yield its full fruit. May this be our outlook and longing.

The psalm ends on a note of triumphant praise—“Unto thee will I sing psalms with the harp, thou holy One of Israel”.

FCM