Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 1-088 Sunday 13 May 2001

Reading: PSALM 61 – TO LIVE IN GOD’S FAVOUR

(From ‘Encounter with God’ Bible Reading Notes)

‘Lord God, create in me a deep longing for your presence. Amen.’

I once saw a television programme in which a boy was asked what he dreamt of becoming. ‘I’d like to be the president,’ he answered with a gap-toothed smile. And why, he was asked: ‘If I became president, I’d get to live in a big, big house, ride in my own aeroplane and everyone would have to obey me,’ he said as he glared at the screen.

We smile. Though it is true that some people do indeed hanker for high public positions for exactly these reasons, most great leaders know that it is extremely lonely up there. In this psalm it is clear that David felt this loneliness keenly, although he was no mean ruler even by our standards. A valiant warrior, he was extremely popular among his people. Foreign leaders kowtowed to him and were dazzled by his personal wealth as well as that of his nation. At the height of his glory, enemies trembled at the very mention of his name. What more could he ask for?

Nothing except a longing for God’s companionship. The burden of leadership, the pomp and circumstance, have not only alienated him from natural human fellowship, but from God himself (v 2). Such distance sharpens his sense of his own weakness and humanity. The more faint, helpless and fragile he feels, the more he longs for God the solid rock, the tower, the sheltering wings under which he longs to find refuge (vs 3,4). No wonder that, for all his human failures, David is described by the Scriptures as ‘a man after Yahweh’s own heart’.(See 1 Sam 13:14; 1 Kings 15:3,5; Acts 13:22,36) God was his continuing passion.

This is true greatness. When we put God above all others, long for his continual presence and depend only on his gracious munificence, we become kingly in God’s eyes, even though no crown gleams on our head or sceptre flashes in our hand. To live in God’s presence is the cry of everyone who has been filled with the Holy Spirit.

Think of three things you can do every day to keep in close fellowship with God.

– Evelyn Miranda-Feliciano

Copyright Scripture Union, 2001