Psalms for the Soul: Psalm 60: Daily Bible Study, Daily Devotional, Hearing Jesus

Indeed presents. Highers, you can't afford to get wrong. Like payroll manager. Hi, I was just checking my pay slip and it's all in Japanese yen. Yes, you're welcome. Sorry? Given the exchange rate between the pound and the yen, you're technically a millionaire now. Don't spend it all in one place! I can't really spend it anywhere. This is a job for sponsored jobs! This is what happens when you don't sponsor your job on Indeed. So the next time you need someone to get the job done right, get matched with quality candidates with an Indeed sponsored job. Visit Indeed.com slash NextHire and sponsor your job today. Affirmations for rest, renewal, and surrender. The week is ending and as we step into the weekend, let's take a moment to breathe. Release our burdens and rest in God's presence. We're not meant to carry everything ourselves. God calls us to lay our worries at His feet and find renewal in Him. Repeat after me, then listen to the Bible verse. I release my worries and trust God to handle what I cannot. 1 Peter 5-7, cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you. God's peace fills my heart and I rest in His presence. Matthew 11-28, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. I am not defined by my mistakes. God's grace is greater than my failures. Lamentations 3, 22, and 23, because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed for His compassion's number fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. I let go of the need to control everything and surrender to God's perfect plan. Proverbs 3, 5 and 6, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways submit to Him and He will make your paths straight. I am deeply loved by God and nothing can separate me from His love. Romans 8, 38 and 39, for I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. God refreshes my soul and renews my strength. Isaiah 40, 31, but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not be faint. I will be fully present today trusting that God holds tomorrow. Matthew 6, 34, therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. My body, my mind and my spirit find rest in God alone. Psalm 62, 1, truly my soul finds rest in God. My salvation comes from Him. I let go of striving and choose to rest in God's love. Isaiah 3, 17, the Lord your God is with you, the mighty warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you, in His love He will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing. I step into the weekend with joy, knowing that God is in control. Psalm 118, 24, this is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it. God's presence is my safe place. Psalm 91, 1, whoever dwells in the shelter of the most high will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I am fully known and fully loved by God. Psalm 139, 1, and 2, you have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise, you perceive my thoughts from afar. I will not let stress steal my peace today. Philippians 4, 6, and 7 do not be anxious about anything but in every situation. By prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God, and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. God is my refuge and I am safe in His hands. Psalm 46, 1, God is our refuge and strength and ever present help and trouble. I do not need to have all the answers. I trust God. Romans 11, 33, O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable His judgments and His paths beyond tracing out. God is fighting my battles and I can rest in His victory. Exodus 14, 14, the Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still. I will not fear because God is with me. Isaiah 41, 13, for I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, do not fear, I will help you. I am held together by God's love even when life feels overwhelming. Colossians 1, 17, He is before all things and in Him all things hold together. God's goodness and mercy follow me every day. Psalm 23, 6, surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. I will not carry burdens that God has already taken from me. Matthew 11, 29, and 30, take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your soul for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. I am at peace because God is in control. Isaiah 26, 3, you will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast because they trust in you. I trust in God's timing even when I don't understand. Ecclesiastes 3, 11, He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I will lay down my burdens and take on God's rest. Psalm 4, 8, in peace I will lie down and sleep for you alone Lord make me dwell in safety. I am never alone for God is always with me. Deuteronomy 31, 6, be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them for the Lord your God goes with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. No matter what happens today, God is still good. Psalm 4, 9, in peace I will lie down and sleep for you alone Lord make me dwell in safety. Nahum 1, 7, the Lord is good a refuge in times of trouble he cares for those who trust in him. Father as this week comes to an end I lay my burdens at your feet. Help me to release my worries, rest in your peace and trust you with everything I cannot control. Refresh my heart and renew my spirit so I can step into the weekend with joy. In Jesus name amen. I hope these affirmations spoke to your heart today. If you want to go deeper just keep listening. Your full Bible study episode is coming up next. As we spend time listening for God's voice there are moments when he invites us to step out of our normal routines and to follow him more intentionally. Bible Study Live is an in-person Bible study experience that I've built around traveling with that kind of purpose. We gather to open scripture together, to pray, to learn and walk through the Bible in community all while being fully present in these meaningful places. We've recently added a second location and many of the spots are already filled by alumni who've gone on previous trips with me before. Because of that space is limited. If you've been sensing that God may be inviting you into a deeper season of growth I'd love to have you join us on one of this year's trips. You can learn more at Biblestudylive.org. Hey friends I'm Rachel Grohl and I'm your host for the Hearing Jesus podcast where I help you to know God and to make him known. Sometimes when we are facing a situation that doesn't seem to make sense it can be easy to just think okay God where are you. But what we learn in Psalm 60 is that we can lean into this identity that we have in our relationship with God and say okay God even if I don't understand I trust you. We're going to be talking about that more today. Today we're going to be reading through Psalm 60. I pray this episode blesses you. If you have rejected us oh God and burst forth upon us you have been angry now restore us. You have shaken the land and torn it open mend its fractures for its quaking. You have shown your people desperate times. You have given us wine that makes us stagger but for those who fear you you have raised a banner to be unfurled against the bow. Save us and help us with your right hand. That those you love may be delivered. God has spoken from His sanctuary. In triumph I will parse it out, shek'em and measure off the valley of Sukkoth. Gilead is mine and Manasseh is mine. Ephraim is my helmet. Judah my scepter. Moab is my wash basin. Upon Edom I toss my sandal. Over Felicia I shout in triumph. Who will bring me to the fortified city? Who will lead me to Edom? It is not you oh God who have rejected us and no longer go out with our armies. Give us aid against the enemy for the help of man is worthless. With God we will gain the victory and he will trample down our enemies. So Psalm 60 is a Psalm that is what is called a community lament. We know that because of the words us, our, we and a lament is like a prayer complaint essentially and this is a prayer that's being prayed by the congregation after Israel has had this daunting defeat in a battle probably by the Edomites as it talks about in verse 8. And in these Psalms of lament there's a complaint that can typically take on three directions or even a combination of directions. It can be a complaint against God. A lot of times we see that. It can be a complaint against themselves and it can also be a complaint against the enemies. Here what we're seeing is especially in the beginning part a complaint against God and there are other Psalms that are like this Psalm 50, Psalm 73 to 83, the Asaph Psalms that they sometimes contain this direct word from God that that alludes to kind of the similar way that we're reading this in Psalm 60 but Psalm 60 contains a word that is spoken by a prophet or a priest or perhaps even the king who is the psalmist and that prophet is giving assurance that God's claim on Canaan still applies and that his attention to make the conquest complete is still in effect. And I think that's important for a couple reasons. We have a tendency just like they did to look at things in the physical and then sometimes forget what God has promised in the spiritual. And so in the context of this Psalm what we're seeing is despite this defeat we have a God who is saying don't don't look at that look at me. And sometimes in those moments when it's feeling defeating and it has no explanation we can still affirm victory because we know we have God's help because without God's help all the human help in the world is is worthless without God. And so Psalm 60 serves as this reminder that God is faithful and we can rehearse his promises and his faithfulness despite what the circumstances look like. And ultimately God's word of promise is going to be fulfilled. Sometimes it's hard to remember that. So Psalm 60 is one of those psalms those prayers that help us remember that in those difficult moments. In 60 verse 2 when it's talking about quaking the metaphor of an earthquake can describe really any kind of catastrophe or even something like a social upheaval. And here it's talking about a military disaster. But that idea of quaking we see that a couple different times throughout the Psalms it's really any kind of tragedy or catastrophe that's happening. I want to talk just for a minute about this list of cities because I don't know if you're like me but when I first read that I'm like what is even going on right here. There's a couple things that we want to pay attention to when it's going through this list of cities. So these places starting in verse 6 these places that are listed in this prophetic section are naming regions that were under the sovereign control of Yahweh either they were his agents in battle or if they were Israelite they housed enemies that God was going to defeat. And so Shechem was an important city in the northern hill country of Israel and that is a location that is associated with the wanderings of the patriarchs and then also worship. The place of the covenant renewal for the Israelites was going to be there when they settled the land under Joshua. And so since that area was closely tied with Israel's presence in the land and in the covenant they had with Yahweh right here what it's doing is it's referring to a point of Yahweh's possession of the land. And I think that's an important reminder because what this is doing is that serving again as a reminder Shechem is a place that is under God's control. And then across the Jordan River from Shechem was Sukkoth which is a city that is also associated with Jacob and it's located near the valley of the river and it's conquered by Joshua and given to the tribe of Gad who settled in that area. And then Gilead is another name for that same region and Manasseh is the tribe who included the allotment of Shechem. So what we're seeing is these first four geographical references it's really referring to two. It's basically a long way to say talk about these two geographical regions. And what's going on in these regions is these are regions that are controlled and have a huge tie to the covenant between God and his people. So being north of Moab and Edom this region of Israel is a way for Yahweh to claim possession of Israel and also challenge the foreign nations. And I think that's important because there is a major foreign threat that was in that Mediterranean coastal region because of the Philistines. And so in this prophecy what it's doing is it's naming the majority of the Israelite territories and their immediate foreign enemies. That's a lot but the application of that is that there is going to be an intervention of God on the behalf of his people against the enemies of Israel. And I say all that to say God is present and he is working and he is able in the middle of the situations that feel like you are up against your enemies. And I know that might be hard to grasp because we don't understand the regional aspects of what it's saying here. But it's again it's a way for the psalmist to claim okay even in the midst of what I'm doing human aid is nothing if I don't have God's aid. And essentially what we're seeing through this passage is God reminding them look I got you. And I don't know if that's important for you. For me I've had situations where I've been up against so many different things and I have in the physical not understood how it's going to work out. And yet we serve a God that says hey I got you. I don't know if you've been in those kinds of situations but if you are I want you to remember that we serve a God that sees your situation he understands your situation and he is present in your situation despite what the enemy might try to tell you. From the co-author of Attached the book that reshaped our understanding of anxious, avoidant and secure attachment styles comes the new audiobook Secure. Dr. Amir Levine's latest research shows that those with secure attachment styles feel more at ease both in their relationships and within themselves. Learn how to rewire your attachment style and unlock stronger relationships, better health, greater resilience and more fulfilling life. Presave Secure on Spotify now. Another aspect of this song I want to make sure that we don't miss is that David is admitting that God's people have suffered this defeat in this battle because they failed to depend on God and follow his plans. And so the solution in those kinds of situations or at least in this situation was to desperately seek God in prayer and asking God to forgive them and to renew this right attitude in their hearts. And we at times do the same thing. I mean we, I myself have been up against some heavy things and my attitude or my heart or my mouth is not in alignment with God in that situation. I give in to the flesh, especially if it's something to do like with my kids or my family or somebody I love. I mean Pastor Rachel goes out the window and Mama Bear shows up. And no, I'm not saying that it's right. I think it's human nature. It's why I need Jesus. It's the very reason why we need the Holy Spirit's intervention on our behalf because left to ourselves the flesh rises up. And so what do we see the answer here? The answer is repentance. The answer is coming to God in prayer and asking for God's forgiveness and asking for his intervention. And even spiritually, sometimes we can feel defeated or we can experience defeat in our families or in our personal lives or even in our churches when we don't listen to the Holy Spirit. Our pride can get the better of us. We can seek the world standard instead of the biblical standard. We can give in to the things and the pressures of this world. And when that happens, it drives us to this place of feeling isolated from God to the point we're almost afraid of asking him for help because it's almost like, well, we got ourselves into this situation. You have to get yourself out of this situation. And see, that's what the enemy wants you to think, but that's not God's standard. That's not God's solution. In fact, God's greatest desire is that we turn to him for forgiveness and help. I mean, it's the whole point. It's the whole point of the gospel is he sent Jesus so we could experience forgiveness and reconciliation in our relationship with him. And so if we do that, he accepts us and he gives us victory in the end, but we have to come to that place. So as we look at the theological insights that we can gain from this passage, it would be easy to believe that Israel's defeat by their enemies, at least this temporary defeat, is a conclusion that based on their circumstances, God has rejected him. Yet what the psalmist is doing is he's pointing out he has this deeper knowledge and confidence of God's love for Israel. And so as we talked about a couple minutes ago, the Israel is God's people. Israel is God's beloved people. And there has been this covenant between Yahweh, God, and this special people that is not going anywhere. It's not like these circumstances are going to nullify that covenant. And in fact, the psalmist is pointing at God's faithfulness as people. And while in the temporary physical circumstances, it may not feel that way, what I say all the time is we can't go by what we feel. We have to go by what we know. In the world we live in today, while our situations and our circumstances are different, there are wars going on. And we can think through this connection to Psalm 60, because it all kind of grows out of this military situation. So Israel has suffered this defeat in this battle. And even though they can't identify what they did wrong, and that thinking in that culture was that sin is connected to, all sin is connected to behavior and outcomes. So they have this thinking that if they have gotten to this place, it has to be a result of their sin. And while we know that that might not be true at the time, that's what they believe that's how they felt. And that's the people of Israel, what they were wrestling with. And so they go to God in prayer about it. These are some tragic times for them. And we see these metaphors that's talking about the land being torn open, or Israel being drunk and staggering about. And these are pictures that stand in contrast to this idea of Israel as a people group who fear the Lord, and they know that they're loved, and that they are God's beloved. It's a contrast because it's a result of the weariness that they are facing after being in this battle that they have just lost. And I think what we can see at the very heart of this psalm is that David's reaction to this setback, I mean, it's a huge, huge setback. There's two things we can take away that we can see. The first is that David uses language of faith, and he prays for God's intervention from a perspective and a foundation of faith. He's speaking of those who fear God in verse four, and he talks about being beloved in verse five. And he speaks about this banner being laid out on the field of battle to represent God's presence and God's right hand, which can save and deliver. And these are reminders that God has been faithful to Israel, even when it doesn't feel like that. The second thing that we can see from David is that he is remembering God's promise to give Israel the land, because God has spoken, he says God has spoken from a sanctuary and verses six through eight are a beautiful reminder of that. And while at first, let me read six through eight, just as a reminder, six says God has spoken from a sanctuary in triumph, I will parcel out, check them and measure off the valley of suckers. Gilead is mine and Manasseh is mine. Ephraim is my helmet. Judah is my scepter. That is a very beautiful picture, if you understand it, it might seem kind of hard to understand because we don't get the layers of it. But when we remember that Joshua conquered Canaan, and then he parceled out the land to the tribes of Israel, we begin to see these details of of how God intervenes and works despite the circumstances. And so in other words, there's a picture behind this picture, behind this word picture, and it's a picture of God parceling out the land and a fulfillment of his promise to give the land to Israel. And the allotment of the land when Joshua did it was done on God's behalf. And so this picture, this word picture is found nowhere else in the Bible, but in this psalmist David, the psalmist referring to God standing in the land of Canaan and saying, I'm going to triumph and parcel out, Shechem. He's metaphorically speaking about running his finger over the map and saying, okay, here's Shechem, I'm giving it to you Israel. And here's the valley of Succath, I'm giving it to you Israel. And Gilead and Manasseh, they're mine. So here they are. They're all yours. And Ephraim, that's yours. It's basically him saying, I got this. And so I don't want you to miss that because we all face situations where we don't understand what's going on, that we, when we see the situation that's going down before us, we don't understand what's going on. And yet we have a God that comes back and reminds us, I am faithful. I got this. Even if you don't get it right now, you have to remember that I am faithful. And I'll tell you, this is a very, very small, not even probably relevant, but I'm going to say it anyway. This is a small experience that I had because this past couple of weeks that I'm just going to, I'm just going to share because I think it might help explain this concept. David is leaning into his identity as being a chosen Son of God, and this identity of knowing that God is faithful in his promises. And when you can use that as your foundation, all of the things that are happening around you fade away. When we went, we traveled over Christmas, my family and I did. And it was our family vacation for the year, and because my daughter's in college now, we had to kind of plan on her college break. And I had this wonderful idea that we could be able to get away in, even though it was December, and we could just spend a week just being together as a family. And going there was not the problem. Coming home, probably like many of you, are the area we lived in experienced this huge, huge, huge, huge snowstorm. And it made the process of getting home very, very difficult. And by no means am I equating this to war. And by no means am I trying to minimize any situations that you're going through. But for us, when you're traveling with children, me, I travel as an adult and I'm used to delays and all those kinds of things. But when traveling with children, it's a different story. It can be very, very stressful for them, just not knowing and having this insecurity. And so between the process of flights being delayed and then flights being canceled and then connecting flights being canceled, then connecting flights being delayed, we were delayed and delayed and delayed. And what ended up happening was as we ended up in Detroit and we live in Pennsylvania. And it was Christmas Eve, everything was close. It was super late at night. We picked the only rental car that was available, um, in all of Detroit, there was one basically one car left. And when we got it, um, we didn't realize until we were about a mile down the road that the whole front end was smashed in. We drove from Detroit to Cleveland because we had left Cleveland and that's where our car was. And so it's the middle of the night, Christmas night, we have been traveling for four days, our luggage is lost. We have no idea where, if our luggage is even in the country at this point. And just over and over and over, everything just kept hitting and hitting and hitting. And of course, nothing's open for food and the kids are starving. And we don't even know if we're going to be able to make it to Cleveland, little home back to Pennsylvania because the weather is so bad and there's cars off the road. Um, it was just a mess. It was a mess. And as we got to Cleveland, when we got there, the, um, the place where we had parked our van that, that, uh, parking lot was closed and they were not letting us in. So my husband had to figure out a way to get in and get, get to our van when we went to drop off the rental car. Um, because it's a snowstorm and it's the middle of the night and it's Christmas Eve. There's no employees. So, um, it was kind of a mess. And actually to this day, um, we're what, three weeks into January, they still think the car is stolen because they, they haven't processed it and they don't even know where the car is. And it's, it's just a huge mess. I'm saying all that to say, there was this temptation every step of the way, as we were fighting and fighting and fighting to get home. We finally got home on Christmas day. It took us four and a half days to get home. But as we were fighting to get home, the temptation would have been to just say, God, what are you doing? Where are you? This is ridiculous. And I, and I, and I'm not minimizing because this was coming home from a vacation. This was not war, but in the moment, the stress of that felt like, man, we could have said, God, where are you? This sucks. Whatever. And instead it was interesting because I think probably for one of the first times in my life, I kept feeling and sensing my first thought was, okay, God, I trust you. This is not ideal. This doesn't seem to make sense, but I trust you. And I think that's what I'm getting at as I read this song. And that's what I want you to get at is that despite what's going on, the chaos that's going on, we can have peace when we have confidence in knowing that God is faithful. And that's the place that I want you to get to this, this, in this song, that there's a victory on the other side of this because we serve a God that that is victorious because Jesus defeated death on the cross. There's nothing that the enemy can throw at us that God can't overcome. He is the Redeemer and the Restorer of all things, despite our circumstances. And when we can get that through our heads and our hearts, it changes the way we live our lives even in the midst of chaos. So given that insight, I want to reread this for you. And I pray that it blesses you. Starting verse one, you've rejected us, O God, and burst forth upon us. You have been angry, now Restorus, you've shaken the land and torn it open, mend its fractures for it is quaking. You have shown your people desperate times. You have given us wine that makes us stagger. But for those who fear you, you have raised a banner to be unfurled against the bow. Save us and help us with your right hand that those you love may be delivered. God has spoken from his sanctuary in triumph. I will parcel out, check them and measure off the valley of Succath. Gilead is mine and Manasseh is mine. Ephraim is my helmet. Judah my scepter. Moab is my wash basin. Upon Edom I toss my sandal. Over Felicia I shout in triumph. Who will bring me to the fortified city? Who will lead me to Edom? Is it not you, O God, who have rejected us and no longer go out with our armies? Give us aid against the enemy for the help of man is worthless. With God we will gain the victory and he will trample down our enemies. God, I pray for my friends today that they would lean into the knowledge that you are faithful despite the circumstances we may be facing. Despite the chaos of this world and the hard things and the battles that we feel like we've lost, you are a God that is faithful. So right now I pray for my friends. I pray that they would be overwhelmed with this sense of your provision that even if the battle has been lost, the victory is still yours. God, I pray for the victory we can have in allowing your peace to fill us despite the circumstances of our lives. God, I thank you for this constant reminder and David's heart of just knowing that you are a faithful God. I pray again that this would permeate our hearts and reminds us in such a way that we don't doubt, that we would walk away from chaotic or stressful circumstances and we would say, okay, God, I don't understand, but I trust you. It's this place that you are calling us to and it's this place that I pray my friends can arrive at. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. The Hearing Jesus podcast is so excited to partner with Compassion International. We believe in Compassion's mission to release children from poverty in Jesus' name. I've seen the impact myself through the letters and the updates that I've received as a sponsor. It's not just changing the lives of children, it's changing entire families, whole communities, always through the local church and always in Jesus' name. When you sponsor a child, you ensure access to quality education, medical checkups, healthy food, clean water, and most importantly, the love of Jesus delivered through a church in their community because of a generous, caring sponsor like you. And you can speak life, love, and hope to your sponsored child through personal letters that you'll exchange. I hope you'll join me in sponsoring a child through Compassion today. All you have to do is pull out your phone, open up a text and text Hearing Jesus to 83393. You'll get back a text with a picture of a child who is waiting for a sponsor and a link to sponsor that child. You can also go to compassion.com forward slash hearing Jesus to choose a boy or a girl to sponsor. When you sponsor a child, we will send you a copy of She Hears Learning to Listen to Jesus, My Bible Study, as a token of our thanks for investing in the life of a child. Thank you for joining me in sponsoring a child through Compassion today.