Psalm Twenty-One: Answered Prayer Plus

"O LORD, the king rejoices in your strength.  How great is his joy in the victories you give!  You have granted him the desire of his heart and have not withheld the request of his lips.  You welcomed him with rich blessings and placed a crown of pure gold on his head.


 He asked you for life, and you gave it to him- length of days, for ever and ever.


Through the victories you gave, his glory is great; you have bestowed him splendor and majesty.  Surely you have granted him eternal blessings and made him glad with the joy of your presence.


For the king trusts in the LORD; through the unfailing love of the most high he will not be shaken."  v. 1-7

God, when David asked for victory and you spared his life, I wonder if he knew that by doing so, he would eventually be in the lineage of the Messiah?  How small is the scope of our requests and understanding, yet you grant them and bestow so much more than we could ever think to ask for.  Through David's victory, you gave him

 his own life, 

glory for himself, 

eternal blessings from heaven, 

joy in Your presence, 

and most importantly- added to his faith and ensured him that You are a God who loves him.  

God, may I trust in Your unfailing love in the same way that David did even before my requests are answered.  

In this illustration, I drew three little eggs that had hatched.  A few weeks earlier, I drew a bird sitting on three eggs to represent the three babies I had lost. 

 They were waiting, sitting under the protection of their Father in Heaven.  But after I read this Psalm, God changed the way that I viewed these children.  They weren't stagnant anymore and their purpose wasn't unfulfilled.  They were now all that God created them to be.  Whole and perfect and victorious.  I drew the nest like a crown- "death swallowed up in victory."  I knew that, if God never made me a mother and granted my requests like I thought He would or should, God was filling me with the joy of His presence and given me eternal blessings, and why should that not be enough?  (ETERNAL.  I can not fathom the word.  Blessings for EVVVVVVERRRRRRRRRR.)  Why am I such a complainer?        

This seems like a theme that has been resurfacing in my life over and over now.  I don't know if its discouraging to revisit old lessons and realize that what I thought I learned I do not continue to put into practice like I should, or encouraging to see these lessons again and know that God refuses to leave me unchanged.  

I've been going to a women's Bible Study on Tuesday mornings.  It is 2 hours of awesomeness-   so many nuggets of wisdom and encouragement that I barely have enough time to scribble them all down.  What was the theme this week?  Gratitude.  Of course.  Gena, our Bible Study leader was talking about "dancing on the Egyptian side of the Red Sea."  When God promised to deliver the Israelites from the hands of the Egyptians, they did not believe Him until they had crossed the Red Sea.  So they waited until it happened before they started to celebrate the goodness of God.  What blessings had they missed out on by not believing God before this miracle happened, and even after it happened?  What did their faithlessness produce?  A whole generation that missed out on seeing the Promised Land.  An ingratitude for what God had done spread like cancer amongst the Israelites.   So they wandered for forty years.  I really hope it doesn't take me that long before I learn to appreciate what God has given me- all the things that I can see now and all that I won't see until I'm in Heaven.