Faith is the Key to Life!

"The humble shall see [this, and] be glad: and your heart shall live that seek God.” (Ps 69:32 AV)

The ‘this’ to which David refers is the salvation God gives in verse 29.  It is the second part of the verse which really spoke to me.  As one muses on this phrase, a question or two arises.  What is the heart?  If one is physically alive, isn’t the heart also alive?  Is David merely referring to a new birth?  Or is he referring to a state of spiritual life?  Is verse 32 a verse eluding to spiritual salvation alone?  Is David speaking of emotional health as well?  Note also that gladness comes before the heart lives.  How does that work?  To what I think our beloved song writer is referring is that those who learn to trust in the LORD’s salvation will find a will and joy to live is the result.  This may be experienced in varying degrees.  If we lose a loved one, we may not be jumping for joy.  We may be sorrowing deeply at our loss.  However, with the knowledge of eventual unity in heaven, our sorrow is not nearly as deep as those who have no hope.  That being the most extreme case, we can also apply this principle to all situations of duress.  The humble who chose to trust in the LORD will be glad they have a God to trust in, resulting in life to the otherwise distressed heart.

Learning to trust the LORD is no easy task.  Spiritual salvation was a challenge.  Trusting the LORD to honor His word, saving me from my sin because Jesus died for me was not easy.  I had been taught an element of human righteousness was involved.  I had a hard time getting beyond that.  Now that I look back, that was the easiest choice I ever made.  For the next forty-plus years, the LORD would place one hurdle after another in my path of life.  He would send our firstborn with a potentially serious complication.  He would give us two more sons in the midst of deep financial poverty.  The LORD would shut off our utilities for a weekend, snap our car in half as we went to church, and struggle against unemployment.  That is the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.  One thing after another.  Just when you think you are coming out of it and you can catch your breath, another trial would rear its ugly head.  This was and is the way of life.  Through it all, we had to learn to trust.  This did not come easy.  It still doesn’t.  Faith never stops growing.  Faith never ceased to be tried.  To grow stronger, we must be challenged further.  This is the way of the saint.

David encourages us in that if we choose to trust, then our hearts will live.  Life will return.  We will not perish.  David tells us if we see the salvation of the LORD and learn to trust it, then we can experience emotional health.  The older I get, the more I realize faith is the foundation of life.  We know this academically.  We study this out and we know it in our head.  But when life happens, faith becomes stretched.  David was many things.  One thing he was, for sure, was a man of faith.  David may have stressed about some things, but he did so in the context of trusting in the LORD.  The key phrase above is, “that seek God.”  The heart cannot live unless it seeks God for salvation.  What a tremendous thought.  If the heart does not seek God, then it becomes pre-occupied with the problems from which it seeks salvation.  So, the short of it is, if we want to live, then we must seek and trust God.