Hope  

by Andy Frost

Read

Psalm 33

We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name (vs20-21).

Reflect

“Sing joyfully to the Lord …” My children go through phases of loving to sing along to worship music in the car. They sing with both joy and volume. I have to be honest that we sometimes limit the number of times they can listen to one album, especially on long car journeys!

Lots of worship songs echo much of what is written in this psalm. There is a joy that comes in singing out the simple truths about God. This psalm lists the reasons to worship God. He is Creator (vs6–9). He is faithful (v4). He is all that is right and just (v5). His plans can’t be thwarted (vs10-11). He sees all things (vs13–15).

The challenge

We all worship something and Psalm 33 is a reminder that God is worthy of all our worship. Sandwiched in between all the reasons why God deserves our worship, this psalm also carries a powerful challenge. In verse 16, the psalmist confronts the human wisdom that kings are saved by the size of their armies and warriors are saved by the great strength.

We can so easily trust in the things we can see and the things we can quantify rather than trusting in God. We can say that we worship God but we can actually pin our hopes on our abilities or on our bank balance.

As dads, mums and carers we can say that our hopes for our children are in God, but sometimes we live as though all our hopes for them are actually in human wisdom. Maybe that is in how well they do at school, or in their ability to excel at certain sports or in what we can provide for them to give them the best start in life.

Worship

Worship is about getting our priorities right. It’s about focusing on God and hoping in him alone. Although we do all we can for our children, we have to give everything over to God and trust that he is love (v5) and that he has our best interests at heart.

Respond

Do our lives reflect that our hope is in God? What might we need to move around in our lives to make God the priority?

Catch up on the rest of Be Refreshed on the blog.