How do you view God? 

• Do you see Him as a loving, caring father who provides for you and helps you through life?
• Do you see Him as a harsh judge handing down indictments for any infraction you commit? 
• Do you see Him as Santa Claus? Do you think He is suppose to keep you happy and fulfill your every desire?  If He doesn’t, do you then believe He doesn’t love you?
• Do you see Him as a distant, uninvolved ogre who created this world, stepped back, and glances once in a while from a distance to see what is happening?
• Do you see Him as impotent; unable to handle the heartaches, evil, pain, and injustices that people face?

The writer of Psalm 94 was troubled by the evil and injustices in his world.  Yet as he thought on them, and the God he knew, he wrote down what he had learned from personal experience.  Some of these are expressed in verses 16-23.

This writer had experienced wicked men coming against him to the point of wanting him dead.  Yet he wrote, if God had not helped me, I would have died. We don’t know how God helped him, but He did!  God wants all of us to call on Him so He can help us too.

When he felt himself slipping – either into sin or away from God, God’s steadfast love held onto him. The writer knew God loved him and faithfully took care for His people.  This knowledge and experience of God’s love and faithfulness kept him from sinning and/or leaving God.

When he had many cares weighing him down, God consoled him and cheered his heart.  Haven’t we experience that?  So many times I have had problems and been discouraged.  Yet, after turning to God and sitting with Him, I have risen encouraged, joyful, and sometimes having received direction as to how to proceed.  If the direction did not come at that moment, God gave it in the proper time.  I have learned that God faithfully comes to us when we seek Him.  He speaks to us through the scriptures or with His Holy Spirit.  He gives us what we need at the proper time.  What a faithful God!

He learned through personal experience, that God is a stronghold – a place of safely in the storms of life.  He is also the solid rock – the firm foundation of that stronghold. He does not crumble.  He is always there for those who make Him their God.

We can also know God this way.  We will not learn it by being a good, moral person.  We will not learn it through being religious.  We will not learn it by just going to church.  We will not learn it by serving in a church or in some service community.  We come to know God by:

• seeking God in His word, the Bible,
• giving ourselves fully to Him,
• developing a trusting, obedient, open relationship with Him.

Those that do, learn that the one true God is:

• The God who can deliver us from our enemies,
• The God who helps us overcome sin and encourages us in our relationship with Him,
• The God who encourages us, cheers us, and helps us with the problems and cares of life,
• The God who is the Safe One to run to in any circumstance.  He is our place of safely.
• The God who is firm, stable, never faltering, never changing. He is our rock.  We can trust and depend on Him.

        What an awesome God!

        Praying that you will come to know Him and experience His love and power in your life,

        Lisa Veach