Some time ago I read about Emma
Daniel Gray, who died at age 95. For 24 years she was the woman who dusted the
office of the President of the United States. She served six presidents. Her
official title was Charwoman. She was a devout Christian and who would stand
and pray over the President's chair each time she dusted it. More important
than being the servant of the President is that she was the servant of Jesus
Christ. Though she rejoiced in serving the President of the United States, she
was deeply grateful that above all she was the servant of Jesus, the King of
kings and the Lord of Lords.
In 1 Chronicles 17 we read about
King David's prayer and his desire. As we begin new year we can join David in
his prayer, so we pray with David, "Who am I, O Lord, that you have brought me
this far and promised me a great future? I am so glad you have exalted me to
the great honor of being your servant!" We rejoice with David that God has redeemed us for himself. At this
point in his prayer, David's awed
praise took him back into his nation's history. He had started with "Who am I,
and what is my family?" He then asked, "And who is like your people Israel?"
We might think that what makes the
Jews distinctive is their culture or their achievements or their land, but that
is not what David thought. What set Israel apart was that they were "the one
nation on earth whose God went out to redeem a people for himself." The story
of the Exodus was on his mind—how God saw the suffering of his people in slavery
in Egypt and brought them out, free and clear, and gave them the land he had
promised them. God redeemed them; he bought them out of slavery.
We pray with David, "O Lord, who is
like your people, your church, for you have drawn us from every people and
language into your redeemed Israel. You have made us your very own, and you, O
Lord, have become our God! Through what you have done to redeem us, you have
made a great name for yourself, Lord Jesus! And we are glad to be your
people!"
With David, we are utterly committed to God's promise.
The rest of David's prayer is a
kind of great Amen:
And now, O Lord, let the word that you have spoken concerning your servant and concerning his house be established forever, and do as you have spoken, and your name will be established and magnified forever, saying, "The Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, is Israel's God," and the house of your servant David will be established before you. For you, my God, have revealed to your servant that you will build a house for him. Therefore your servant has found courage to pray before you. And now, O Lord, you are God, and you have promised this good thing to your servant. Now you have been pleased to bless the house of your servant, that it may continue forever before you, for it is you, O Lord, who have blessed, and it is blessed forever."
In this passage David considered in
astonishment the great covenant that God made with him and, in effect, said,
"I'll take it! Count me in!" "Lord, let this promise be trusted forever." Our
trust is what activates God's promises in our own lives.
My daughters remind me of the Lords
promises and His faithfulness. His promise is sure, regardless of what we do,
but when we trust his promise, that promise becomes our spiritual birthright; it
gets into our spiritual genes. It shapes us and defines us. If we must wait,
we will wait. If it seems like the Lord has forgotten us, we will trust him
nonetheless. We don't have a back-up plan. We won't consider our
options.
Going back to the story of
Emma Daniel Gray. After she died, her pastor said, "'She saw life through the
eyes of promise'". He added, "You can always look around and find reasons to be
[unhappy] … but you couldn't be around her and not know what she believed."
That is exactly what God's people do: see life through the eyes of
promise.
King David continued in verse 24:
"that your name will be great forever. Then men will say, 'The Lord Almighty,
the God over Israel, is Israel's God.'" When it gets into our heads and hearts
what God has done for us—where he found us and where he is bringing us, that he
has exalted us to the high status of being his servants—this is what we want,
too. We want Christ's name to be great in this world. We want people to look at
us—at what Jesus has done for us, at how he sustains us and loves us, at the
people he has made us to be, and at the hope he has given us—and we want them to
say, "The Lord Almighty is their God! And Jesus Christ is their King!"
"O Lord, you are God! You have
promised these good things to your servant." Our trust in God's promise is what
gives us courage to pray. This is written in verse 27. There are ten thousand
confident prayers that may spring from that promise. Every spiritual blessing
in Christ rises from that promise and thus every confident, promise-based prayer
is tethered to it. We are, the Bible says, "a royal priesthood," "a kingdom and
priests." Romans 8:31-32 asks, "If God is for
us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up
for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?"
In Jesus.
Brown
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