Psalm 16 – At the End of the Day

Today’s passage: Psalm 16

Today’s chocolate: Endangered Species Dark Chocolate with Espresso Beans

I memorized this psalm back in high school because it contained a Messianic prophecy about Jesus’ resurrection. That’s verse 10: “For Thou wilt not abandon my soul to Sheol; neither wilt Thou allow Thy Holy One to undergo decay.” But as you can see, I’m a little rusty. Everything after verse 4 comes back to me now in snippets that are fuzzy around the edges, so for the rest of the psalm, I had to break out the actual Bible.

At its core, this is a psalm about how, at the end of the day, God is the most valuable thing to David. He writes, “In Thy presence is fullness of joy; in Thy right hand there are pleasures forever” (11). David is simply glad that he gets to be with God, but on top of that, God has also given him a surfeit of gifts as an expression of his love for him. It calls to mind a line from Amy Grant’s song “Hope Set High”: “When it all comes down, if there’s anything good that happens in life, it’s from Jesus.” Youth group culture, man. Shout outs to all the Christian eighties kids.

I may have a nebulous recollection of most of the psalm, but verse 7 has stuck with me crystal-clear: “I will bless the Lord who has counseled me; indeed, my mind instructs me in the night.” I’ve taken this to mean that God has created our minds to be used–that though we’re fallible, we can listen to God and reason based on what he teaches us in order to find direction in our lives. It’s been a reassurance over the years, and I’m glad I memorized it.

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