Jump Start #3116
Psalms 34:15 “The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and His ears are open to their cry.”
I was in a discussion with someone the other day about these Jump Starts. He was new to our readership and was amazed that there were over 3100 written and now archived. He didn’t think it was possible to sustain this writing pace of every day. He may be right. I told him that this has been going on for a dozen years now. Then he said, “Well, I doubt anyone has read every single one of these.” I guess that was supposed to make him feel good. It didn’t make me feel good. I said, “I only know of two people who have read every single one.” Those two people are me, since I wrote them, and God, since He sees all things.
And, with that, our verse comes to our mind. David wrote this after his brief asylum with the Philistines. King Saul was bearing down and getting close. David had with him Goliath’s sword. He flees to Gath, thinking he could fly under the radar and not be noticed. The sword was a give away. David was recognized. He faked mental illness. He pretended to be crazy. He scribbled things on the gates and then allowed his saliva to run down his face. The king of Gath was finished with David. There were plenty of unstable people in Gath. He didn’t need any foreign ones. So David was sent out. It is after this, that he writes this Psalm.
The chapter is filled with trust, hope and confidence in God. David says that the enemy encamped around him, but he wasn’t afraid. God had delivered him. Our verse today is found among those great blessings that are pointed towards the Lord. The eyes and the ears of the Lord notice the righteous.
Some thoughts for us:
First, some may not like that idea. There is no escaping God. You will never shock God. He sees. He ears. He knows. We may hide things from our family. We may fool our church. We can wear masks and tell people what they want to hear, but God is not mocked. God is not fooled. God sees. God hears. God knows. And, it is God who will judge us. There is no pretending about things. He knows.
Second, for the righteous, this thought is very comforting. God knows. God sees. God hears. There have been some very cruel things said about us and to us. God knows. Often we don’t tell others. Often that pain is internal and we carry those things with us. God knows. And, there are things when we try to get others to understand what our journey is like, but they don’t get it. God does. God sees. We don’t do things for attention or shout outs, and there may be times when we wonder why do we do what we do, but God sees the good that we do. He sees a heart that has been encouraged because you took the time to send a card, shoot a text or call someone. God sees those sad eyes brighten up because of a gift that you shared with someone for no reason other than you care.
Jesus reminds us that a cup of cold water given to a disciple would not be forgotten by Heaven. God sees. God hears. God is there.
Third, there is not a heart that has been hurt that God does not see nor does God not understand why. Bullies, whether in school, work or the church operate on arrogance and intimidating others. They put others in fear. No one dares rise up less a bully puts them down. But God sees. God hears. God is aware. This is why prayer is so powerful. God understands. God sees. We may not fully understand why some people do what they do. God does. We rarely know the whole story behind a situation. God does.
God knew what David was going through. God helped David.
Every cemetery is filled with ideas, plan, poems, songs, and letters that were thought of but never left for others. God saw them. God knows. What a comfort it is to know that God knows.
Roger