Psalm 5 (KJV) - Let all who trust in the Lord rejoice

From Psalms

Psalm 5

¹Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my meditation.
²Hearken unto the voice of my cry,
      my King, and my God:
      for unto thee will I pray.
³My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD;
      in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.
⁴For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness:
      neither shall evil dwell with thee.
⁵The foolish shall not stand in thy sight:
      thou hatest all workers of iniquity.
⁶Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing:
      the LORD will abhor the bloody and deceitful man.
⁷But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy:
      and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple.
⁸Lead me, O LORD, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies;
      make thy way straight before my face.
⁹For there is no faithfulness in their mouth;
      their inward part is very wickedness;
their throat is an open sepulchre;
      they flatter with their tongue.
¹⁰Destroy thou them, O God;
      let them fall by their own counsels;
cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions;
      for they have rebelled against thee.
¹¹But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice:
      let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them:
let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee.
¹²For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous;
      with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield.

For the past several days as I convert my entries to the public domain of KJV from NIV I was simply restating my shares from my original Psalm postings. I realized that was neither fair for you or for me. Everyday we all learn something new - and I am no different. So, everyday as I become stronger in the Lord, and especially stonger against my addictions, there is something different that I have to share.  Since the number of NIV verses that I have posted doesn't exceed 250 (in fact, it's only 210 if you wanted to count) - I will leave those in place to help others that may be struggling with their addiction.

So, today I would like to share about faith. Faith is believing in prayer - believing what Psalm 5 tells us. That he will lead us and make his way known in front of us.  Faith is, despite things not going so well, despite things being very bleak, faith is trusting that God is with us and will answer our prayers.  When we're in the middle of temptation that he will present us with way out.  That he will present us with an opportunity, or a friend with an outstretched hand.

As I have said before, God will sometimes give us lemons, for which we can make lemonade.  He provides tests in which we can choose to demonstrate our faith - or choose to show that we have not fully handed the trust of our lives to him.  Most of the time, in these tests, it just takes a prayer.  Once you see the results and the power you are more likely to rely on it.  And so it goes that faith begets faith - and from faith comes hope.  Eventually, we understand that everything is possible in the Lord.  Even overcoming the strangle of addiction.

This week a couple of things happened where things didn't look so good - but with a little faith God pointed me in the right direction.  In the first situation, I happened to find myself at home alone - which is usually a free ticket to surf unrestricted on the internet.  In this situation after a little prayer, I realized in working step 7 I needed to be asking him to remove my selfishness and replacing it with selflessness.  Quickly, that lead to several things around the house, including cleaning the kitchen for my wife, that I needed to take care of.  In this way He got me back on the right path.

Another time I was out riding my bike and got a flat tire.  My tools weren't getting me back on my bike - but after a little prayer another rider came along and helped me get my bike going, again. 

I could have gotten frustrated, angry, impatient - any number of things could have made those situations worse.  However, faith made them all better.  I cried out in need and God answered - as he always does when we are in need.  As Psalm 5 says (in verse 11), let all who trust in the Lord rejoice.

Thanks for letting me share.