I love digging into God’s Word and seeing what He has tell me. I don’t do it as regularly as I want to, but I am getting better. Journaling the word (I love Cultivate What Matters’ Write the Word Journals!) has become a favorite of mine. I can choose a short or a long passage, depending on time (#momlife). I loved writing kids church curriculum for the same reason – reading and rereading, looking up background information and writing out the words God gives me about the text. It’s a really sweet, significant experience every time.
I truly hope that this impacts your heart. And in case you missed it, you can find the first part of this mini devotional on Psalm 103:1-5 HERE. Let’s jump right into Psalm 103 verses 4&5!
Crowned and Sent Out: A Charge for the Daughters of the King, Part 2
Psalm 103:1-5
Praise the Lord, Oh my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the Lord, my soul and forget not all his benefits – Who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, Who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, Who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
A little review from part 1…
Reminding our soul to praise
Reminding our soul to praise means letting gratitude drive us rather than letting our circumstances control our emotions. He forgives. He heals. He redeems. He crowns us. He satisfies our desires. He renews us.
Redemption from the pit
He didn’t just save us from death because of our sin, He called us to be a part of His Kingdom work. Everything holy about Jesus, compensates for everything human about us.
A charge from the King
But He doesn’t just redeem us when He pulls us out of the pit. The rest of verse 4 says that He then crowns us with love and compassion.
Living with new responsibility
we must learn to live as crowned daughters.
Leaving the pit for the Kingdom
The second part of our new responsibility is to leave our old life in the past and live out who we have been made to be.
Psalm 103:4&5
[The Lord] redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, [He] satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
Our pit versus our purpose
We learned in verse 4 that God doesn’t just save us from the pit, He gives us a purpose. The pit has no hold on our God given purpose. Because of Jesus work on the cross, we have been redeemed and have the power of the Spirit of God within us! When we become part of God’s family, we are given the authority to stand up to the enemy.
The king of lies will try to tell us that the pit we find ourselves in is too deep, too dark, too dirty for God to find us. He will try to convince us that the pit we are in proves that we are too messed up to be loved by God.
The “pit” might be a secret sin, a deep fear, an intense struggle, crushing depression, debilitating guilt, or seemingly unending grief.
When Jesus sacrificed His life on the cross for us, He wiped our slates clean. No matter what sin or temptation we find ourselves in, He has already seen it – He has already forgiven it!
We must trust that the King of Kings has already defeated the king of lies. We must live in the freedom that we have in Jesus – and that means believing that He will still meet us where we are, no matter how deep and dark.
He meets us, pulls us up, redeems us and crowns us with love and compassion. How amazing is the grace and love of our King that He would continually meet us in our mess!
The desires of our heart
I love the encouragement in verse 5. David urges us not to forget that the same Lord who redeems us also satisfies our desires with good things.
What are the desires of your heart?
I had the opportunity to tune in to IF:Conference a few months ago and heard Lysa Terkerst speak on giving God both our devotion AND our desires. She pointed out that it is easier to give God our devotion – to check the boxes of spending time with Him and praying and being kind to others, etc – than to give Him our desires. Our deep, secret desires. The desires of our heart. The ones that make us ache deep inside. The desires that seem to almost break us because they are still there, because it seems He hasn’t given us what we think we need.
Verse 5 says that He DOES satisfy our desires with GOOD things. It doesn’t say with what we think we want or need, it doesn’t say that it will be in our time. It just says that He satisfies our desires with good things.
I feel like many times, we make things more complicated than they need to be. Or we want them to be more complicated so that we can reason and rationalize our way to our own version of truth.
But.
The gospel isn’t that complicated. God gives us promises and we trust that He will come through, just as He has time and time again.
So.
If we believe God is good, and if we believe He is who He said He is, and if we believe that He keeps His promises … we know that He WILL satisfy those deep, aching desires of our hearts with very good things.
Romans 8:28
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
The same Lord who redeems us also satisfies our desires with GOOD things – and the result of that satisfaction is complete renewal.
Renewal isn’t easy
God works the pain, the waiting, the aching FOR GOOD. It’s not easy, it’s not pretty, and it’s certainly not how we would do it. But He carefully and purposefully weaves each thing together for our good. When we are in the midst of the pain, longing for that thing, it can be easy to question Him, raise our fist to Him, yell at Him.
But when you’re hoarse from questioning and yelling and you’re tired from shaking your fist, settle in and come back to sit in His presence.
“Praise the Lord, Oh my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the Lord, my soul and forget not all his benefits – Who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, Who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, Who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”
Praise Him.
Praise Him and don’t forget all He has given, blessed, handed out.
He forgives all sins and heals all diseases.
He rescues us and gives us a crown – a crown that covers us in unconditional love and overwhelming compassion.
He fulfills our deep desires, He provides good things for us.
Remember all the good He has done in the past.
And when you’ve done this, take a breath.
He refreshes us, renews us, and sends us out. To carry out our purpose in His Kingdom.
2 Timothy 1:9
He has saved us and called us to a holy life–not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace.
Ephesians 2:10
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works,which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Prayer
Father, thank you for sending Jesus. Thank you for redeeming us from sin and for meeting us in our mess. Thank you for crowning us and giving us purpose in your Kingdom. Thank you for your promise to satisfy our desires with good things, and thank you for renewing us. Help us to praise you even when our hearts are aching. Teach us to trust that you do in fact keep your promises. We love and want to be more like you. Amen.
I LOVE the song Dance Again from Life Worship. It so perfectly sums up this idea of praising no matter what – that renewal will come and that the whole point of this life is to praise our God.
ALSO, in case you missed them – I created some encouraging lockscreens/phone backgrounds as a reminder of God’s truth. I wanted to share them with you, so just click the link below to head over to the resource library for your free lockscreens. (You will be asked to enter your password if you are a member of the Graceful Journey community already. If you haven’t subscribed yet, you’ll have an opportunity to do just that and then you’ll have access to all the freebies in the library!)