Week 3 - Psalm 95
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“O come, let us sing to the Lord…Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving…For the Lord is a great God…He is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. O that today you would listen to his voice! Do not harden your hearts.”
(Psalm 95:1,2,3,7,8)
I was in a church choir years ago. I remember we sang an anthem based on Psalm 95. It was a joyful, upbeat song. I often think of that when I turn to Psalm 95. However, as you stay with the Psalm, it also shares a cautionary tale: Do not harden your hearts, as the Israelites did, who experienced the presence, provision, and deliverance of God yet turned away from him.
The Psalm mentions Meribah, meaning “quarreling,” and Massah, meaning "testing.” Rather than listening to God and trusting in God, they quarreled and tested God. As a result, they did not enter into God’s rest.
The verse from this psalm that cries out to us during Lent is: “O that you would listen to his voice!”
Listening takes time, attention, and effort. The Chinese symbol for listen includes the ear, the eye, and the heart. Our listening is connected to our heart.
Who you listen to matters. As the psalm shows us, your listening can prompt joy, thanksgiving, and rest, or quarreling, testing, and a hardened heart.
The heart of God is like that of a shepherd (v7). The Hebrew word that is often used to describe the heart of God is hesed. It is almost untranslatable as the meaning is so vast. Multiple words are used to describe it: steadfast love, tender-loving kindness, unfailing love, mercy, faithful love, loyal love. Michael Card says hesed is “When the person from whom I have a right to expect nothing gives me everything.”
We are more like the Israelites than we may want to admit. It is hard to listen to God. It is hard to block out human voices. We grumble and forget and turn away from God. We sin against him. As the prophet says, “all we like sheep have gone astray.” (Isa 53:6)
So what do we do?
The Psalmist tells us, ”O that today you would listen to his voice!”
Start today.
Listen to God.
Come into his presence with thanksgiving.
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord.
Rather than a hardened heart, we can seek an understanding heart.*
“We should be astonished at the goodness of God,
stunned that he should bother to call us by name,
our mouths wide open at His love,
bewildered that this very moment we are standing on holy ground.”
Brennan Manning
Reflect
Read Psalm 95. What stands out to you?
Take an honest look at your average day. Who are you listening to the most? How is it affecting you?
What might it look like to live with an understanding heart from God?
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* I love the plea to ask for an understanding heart. (2 Kgs 3: 5-9, NASB)
