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Heed The Call And Psalm 40

Psalm 40 reads as follows from the New King James version of the Bible:

I waited patiently for the LORD;
And He inclined to me,
And heard my cry.
2 He also brought me up out of a horrible pit,
Out of the miry clay,
And set my feet upon a rock,
And established my steps.
3 He has put a new song in my mouth—
Praise to our God;
Many will see it and fear,
And will trust in the LORD.

4 Blessed is that man who makes the LORD his trust,
And does not respect the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.
5 Many, O LORD my God, are Your wonderful works
Which You have done;
And Your thoughts toward us
Cannot be recounted to You in order;
If I would declare and speak of them,
They are more than can be numbered.

6 Sacrifice and offering You did not desire;
My ears You have opened.
Burnt offering and sin offering You did not require.
7 Then I said, "Behold, I come;
In the scroll of the book it is written of me.
8 I delight to do Your will, O my God,
And Your law is within my heart."

9 I have proclaimed the good news of righteousness
In the great assembly;
Indeed, I do not restrain my lips,
O LORD, You Yourself know.
10 I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart;
I have declared Your faithfulness and Your salvation;
I have not concealed Your lovingkindness and Your truth
From the great assembly.

11 Do not withhold Your tender mercies from me, O LORD;
Let Your lovingkindness and Your truth continually preserve me.
12 For innumerable evils have surrounded me;
My iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up;
They are more than the hairs of my head;
Therefore my heart fails me.

13 Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me;
O LORD, make haste to help me!
14 Let them be ashamed and brought to mutual confusion
Who seek to destroy my life;
Let them be driven backward and brought to dishonor
Who wish me evil.
15 Let them be confounded because of their shame,
Who say to me, "Aha, aha!"

16 Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You;
Let such as love Your salvation say continually,
"The LORD be magnified!"
17 But I am poor and needy;
Yet the LORD thinks upon me.
You are my help and my deliverer;
Do not delay, O my God.

This psalm involved going against the current of what the Lord wanted David to do rather than fully delving into the idea of sin verses not sinning.

David was given license for a lot. Both the ability and means were readily available to go freely into these things and endeavors.

This psalm depicts a scenario that isn't a matter of sinning verses not sinning on David's part.

For David, to a degree it might have been harder to sin, because he had so much on his plate and the free reign to enjoy it.

Such is the case with David as there was no reason for him to steal or things like that.

But he did that anyway in the case of Basheba.

This is not the case here in this psalm. Simply, there was something the Lord wanted him to do. That he wasn't doing.

Jonah invoked a similar scenario. The call to do something for the Lord that was very important that was outright being resisted.

The resistance led Jonah to the belly of the whale, meaning he wasn't going anywhere fast until he came back to the call. The situation of Johan in the belly of the whale represented a complete stop to his flight from the call.

The miry clay David speaks of in this psalm is of similar sorts. He was stuck and wasn't going anywhere.

David did understand what was happening and why. The Lord must have made it clear as he did with Jonah what he wanted to do and what he wanted was too important a task to push aside without a strong intervention from the Lord that could not be overcome.

There was no way Jonah could contend with the Lord by running away, and David in this case was also running away but the exact details are a bit murky as to what he was resisting but it was important enough to the Lord that he was doing something similar with David that was comparable to stopping Jonah.

There was constancy to merciful presence of the Lord that could be withdrawn as it says in verse 11.

11 Do not withhold Your tender mercies from me, O LORD;
Let Your lovingkindness and Your truth continually preserve me.

In Amos chapter 4 verse 7 it says, "
7 " I also withheld rain from you,
When there were still three months to the harvest.
I made it rain on one city,
I withheld rain from another city.
One part was rained upon,
And where it did not rain the part withered.

The Lord had another harvest to attend to and because they were not also tending to that, he withheld the graces for their harvest.

As part of the call back process, grace can be withheld to get the attention of the one being called. These graces amount to a lot and are likely presumed upon. The Lord's graces if withheld have overwhelming ramifications and that is another aspect that can be seen from this psalm, that the withholding of graces can result in the full stoppage of anything else you may be tending to and indeed it may not be a matter of sin, but of not heeding what the Lord is directing towards and especially if the task is very specific and very important to the providential vision of the Lord.

Verse 5 in this psalm says

5 Many, O LORD my God, are Your wonderful works
Which You have done;
And Your thoughts toward us
Cannot be recounted to You in order;
If I would declare and speak of them,
They are more than can be numbered.

It is important to be involved in the ongoing process of seeking out the Lord's thinking, as the thoughts will be many and there is no ability to order them and or put them in a priority list on your part that matches the priorities of the Lord. What is deemed more important by the Lord is something that needs to be sought out and sorted out in the process of seeking him rather than drifting away towards other interests.

That the Lord has many thoughts towards us is a good way to start a prayer of thanksgiving in thanking the Lord for his thoughts but the Lord's thoughts also go into what he wants us to do and carry importance that way as well.

David had been absent to the courtyards of what the Lord wanted him to do.

It could be in part a sin or a sinful path that takes someone away from what the Lord wants them to do. It could be a combination of not doing it and the sin having something to do with the absenteeism from the project.

But the Lord never said Jonah had sinned. He just went in the opposite direction of clear instructions from the Lord on a matter in the context of there and then that was of extreme importance.

David considered himself a sinner, but realized a sin offering wasn't going to cover the bases in this case. He realized his resistance to the call got him in this round of trouble.

It isn't necessarily the offense of a sin not to do something.

For David, the miry clay situation in this psalm amounted to the same thing as the whale situation for Jonah and he was stuck.

He wasn't leaving on a jet plane to some exotic island getaway.

All the other desirable things that the Lord had given him in abundance and with a free reign to act upon were at least temporarily taken away.

Thank goodness David realizes what the story is.

It goes along with the modern day Nike credo, "Just do it."

In Jonah Chapter 3 verse 1 it says,

1 Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2 "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I tell

You.

He was given specific directives towards a specific task.

What was apparently involved was David appearing in the assembly, praising the Lord in the congregation and giving his talks.

It may very well have involved the compositions of the latest psalms

And he may have stopped the work in progress on the psalms as David's divinely dictated writings were destined to take a great proportion of importance in all of the Scriptures.

The communication of this psalm to present day is to be careful to heed Your Own personal call, A call which is likely to be much lighter than the call that was upon David, Joseph, Jonah and other great figures of the Bible, but important to the Lord nonetheless in ways that can not be measured and truly ascertained from your own position and perspective but heeding the call now would not necessarily mean less because it is a different era and time from these great figures of the Bible..

The call could fall into various ministries including a prayer ministry and other works of grace.

The other aspect of this is to understand what is happening.

David at least comes to terms with and understood why things had gone awry, as did Jonah.

But in the confusing mix of your own life, you may not.

The error might be to think that it is a matter of sin, when it is a matter of resisting grace towards what God wants you to do.

While what you want to do overall may not line up directly with what the Lord wants you to do, if you tend to the Lord's interests he will give extra graces towards your interests.

Ask the Lord what I am doing or not doing enough to bring about the tide of troubles. There might be no sin involved whatsoever but if you are going in the other direction from what God wants you to do, you will feel it.

If you are called to pray an hour a day for intercessory purposes, and you're doing it ten minutes a day, this might be it.

It may be the case of not enough rain to water your ministry.

If you have a prison ministry and you are visiting prisoners twice a year, rather than twice a month, than this could be a problem.

Am I or am I not heeding the call that is the question.

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