Dial Daily Bread: Welcome to "David's Club"

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Have you ever been opposed, misrepresented, misunderstood, and as a result, pained? Welcome to "David's Club"! The Holy Spirit has provided for you David's "Prayer Book" wherein you can find encouragement ready-made for every problem life brings to you.

You know that you are unworthy to pray David's prayers as though they were your own, for he was "the anointed of the Lord," and you have this deep feeling that you are not. But God invites you to do exactly that--to identify with David in his prayers. And here's the reason why it's so:

King David had a Son, a distant Descendant, who so immersed Himself deeply in David's Psalms that He earned the title, "The Son of David." And it is He who invites you to identify with David and pray his Psalms as though they were your own prayers, because that is what He did and they became His prayers. God has "predestinated [you] unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, ... wherein He hath made [you] accepted in the beloved" (Eph 1:5, 6). Jesus invites you to pray in His name, so that all the encouragement He Himself derived from the Book of Psalms He wants you to absorb also.

You will find this difficult to grasp, that one so unworthy as you know yourself to be should be thus exalted, but you ever afterwards "walk softly" before the Lord and before your fellow humans. David suffered opposition, misrepresentation, even hatred from the people who prided themselves as being God's people, David's fellow-Israelites.

You may suffer problems in your family (so did David, and so did Jesus), or at work, or even (could it be so?) in your church--the place where you expected peace and harmony. A wise writer has reminded us that there is a "supreme court of the universe, from whose decision there [can] be no appeal" (Christ Triumphant, p. 176). David often appealed to that Supreme Court, and so can you. Then you can find rest unto your soul, confident in the decision of that "court."

Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
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