Fountain of Life

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Scripture: Psalm 36:5-9 (NIV)

5 Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens,

your faithfulness to the skies.

6 Your righteousness is like the highest mountains,

your justice like the great deep.

You, Lord, preserve both people and animals.

7 How priceless is your unfailing love, O God!

People take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

8 They feast on the abundance of your house;

you give them drink from your river of delights.

9 For with you is the fountain of life;

in your light we see light.

 

Devotion:

 

            The verses above proclaim loudly that God above is the source of all goodness. The psalm in its entirety is a plea for help, but most of the psalm praises God for His goodness and love. The verses above declare God’s hesed or steadfast, unchanging, love. The psalmist declares that God’s love reaches to heavens above and His faithfulness likewise reaches from earth to heaven and back. God is seen here as protector of all His creation.

 

            Next, God’s righteousness and justice are praised. There is no one like our God when it comes to these things. The world is filled, it seems, with wickedness and injustice. There seems to be no end to the evil or moderation to the appalling things those in high places commit. They seem to face no consequences and are proud of the deeds they have done. We have these promises from the Lord’s own mouth that He sees all the wickedness done under the sun and will one day set all things right.

 

            Indeed, the Love which You dispense is unconquerable and unexplainable in human terms. For who has known the mind of God? Yet God is to be praised because without cause or explanation He shelters His people from the ravages of the world. Even if disaster should overtake us we can know that God counts us as a valuable part of His flock and will seek us when we are lost and restore our lives in Him again.

           

            God’s people take refuge in Him because of his unfailing love. They eat and drink from the food and water God provides. The Lord provides for all the needs of all his creatures. And His creatures trust in God because they have never seen Him fail to meet their inmost needs. God has provisions in abundance for His children and will ultimately see to it that all their needs are taken care of. Finally, the psalmist declares that in God’s light we shall see light. In God’s kingdom there will be no darkness at all. God, who through His Son said, “I am the light of the world.” One day we will see all things in that light.

           

            

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