Tuesday-October 27-Psalms 31-Tim Keller

INTO YOUR HANDS. Under great stress it is possible to journey from great “anguish of … soul” (verse 7) to confidence and being in “a spacious place” (verse 8). David makes this journey by being spiritually active, not passive. He cries in prayer, “Come quickly to my rescue” (verse 2). He repents in prayer of all idols (verse 6). He communes with God in prayer until his love and favor produce joy, compensating for all other losses (verse 7). These are all ways of committing ourselves into his hands (verse 5). Do this, and God will bring you also into a spacious place, despite your sins, because Jesus committed his spirit into God’s hands (Luke MY TIMES.David lives with “terror on every side” (verse 13). Life seems precarious and even capricious. Terrible things happen that make no sense to us. But, David knows, world history and our personal histories are not, ultimately, operating on chance. “My times are in your hands,” he reminds himself and us (verse 15). The Bible’s teaching on this is balanced. Many events are evil and grievous, yet God overrules them and works them all together, in the long run, for good (Romans 8:28). So in the end our lives cannot be derailed permanently. Learn how to say to God: “My times are in your hands.”

Prayer: Lord, so many of the circumstances of my life make no sense to me, but they make sense to you. Help me, like David, to rest in that. My times are truly in your hands, and that is absolutely, infinitely better than if they were in my hands. Amen.