Read the transcript from today's video devotional.
Have you ever lost confidence in God? Have you ever lost confidence in the power of God? Maybe there was a time in your life when you prayed and you felt like God was silent. I remember praying for a friend of mine. Then I found out the next day that he passed away. I remember going through a time of having a lot of debt, praying for God to open a door of opportunity for me. It just felt like closed door after closed door. I wondered, Lord, where are You?
I was in the middle of just trying to figure life out. I remember I didn't know what to do with my career. I didn't know what was next for me. Those seasons are hard to lean into the Lord. A part of me wants to just distance myself from God because I'm like, Lord, I prayed, why aren't You answering? Because I know that You're able. So why are You not coming through for me?
David's Uncertain Time
Our verse today is a Psalm of David, and this was a very uncertain time in his life. He was still trying to figure things out. In fact, in verse 1, he prays. He says, "Keep me safe, O God, for I have come to You for refuge." Here's David, coming to God for refuge. If we read the entire Psalm, David didn't figure life out. David didn't get all his prayers answered, and then write this song that talks about how he loves the presence of God. No, he was in the middle of it. He was in the thick of it. Yet he still says this: "You are my master."
What Does Master Mean?
What does that mean when he says, "You are my master"? A master directs. A master gives commands. When I say, "You are my master," what am I doing? I'm giving up my rights. I'm saying I'm choosing to relinquish control. I'm saying, God, You are in control. That takes a lot of humility to do that, to say, God, I don't know what to do. I give You my rights. You are on the throne. You are in control. That's what David is doing. He's surrendering even though he hasn't figured life out. He doesn't know what's next.
The posture that he chooses is, I'm going to trust You and I'm going to surrender. Surrender is not a popular word, because it means that we give up our rights, we give up our control, and all of us love to be in control. I love to be in control. Surrender is not this one-time event where we say, okay, Lord, today I'm going to choose to surrender, and then we don't surrender the remainder of the week.
Surrender Leads to Joy
What I want us to understand is on the other side of surrender is joy. One of the biggest lies of the enemy is that a surrendered life is not worth it. A surrendered life is a boring life. I want to ask us a question: Do we believe that a surrendered life leads to joy? Because how we answer that will determine if we surrender our lives to the Lord.
The reason David can say, "You are my master," is because he knows that God's way is always better. Sometimes we can say, Lord, Your way is better, but secretly we're doing whatever we want to do. Christianity is about relinquishing control and saying, "Lord, You are"—just like David said—"You are my master. You are on the throne."
God's Commands Are for Our Good
When God tells us to do something, we understand that it's for our good. If I'm reading the Bible and there's a command in there that God tells me to do, God is not trying to make my life worse. He's actually saying, "This command is for your good. It's for your joy." David understood that.
Every Good Thing Comes from God
Then he says this: "Every good thing I have comes from You." He's acknowledging everything that he has comes from God. The source is God. The fact that I can eat a burrito, that I have tastebuds, God gave me those. I'm acknowledging, Lord, thank You for my tastebuds. When I look at a sunset, I can say, Lord, thank You for giving me eyes to see. Thank You that I can read.
I'll never forget when I was a hospital chaplain and I spoke to a patient and the patient said, "My dream is to one day see again so that I can read." That just hit me. I thought, whoa, here's this patient talking to me about dreams. This patient's dream was to read again. Here I am, I can read, I can see a sunset. It is so important for us believers to have a life that's marked by gratitude, because gratitude is one of the ways that we fight the enemy because we say, Lord, You're the source. Everything I have comes from You.
David challenges us: one, to surrender, and two, to live lives that are marked by gratitude.