Holy Psalm of David no.19 - for all people

¹The heavens declare the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship.  ²Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known.

The psalmist (King and Prophet David) declares here that all creation speaks a powerful message to all the world (v.4) yet without sound or human words. He then quotes the sun as an example; the sun rises and sets faithfully each day giving light and heat to our planet earth (v.5, 6).

In creation we are to see the glory of God (Allah in Arabic) in various ways that we need to draw out and meditate on, for example, on the beauty we see around us, on the very gift of life; on the faithful provision for our needs; on the abundance that nature affords; on the total interdependence required to sustain life.  In all these and other aspects of the natural world we are called to see the glory of the Creator God and make the one God our God, not in an image of our choosing, but in the image of which his creation speaks.

However the psalmist does not leave us floundering at this point: he straightway tells us,

⁷The instructions of the Lord are perfect, reviving the soul. The decrees of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple....¹¹They are a warning to your servant, a great reward for those who obey them.

Here the psalmist is referring to those instructions and commandments that have been revealed not through the natural world around us, but rather by God speaking through the human spirit down the ages.  At that time the psalmist was only able to meditate (v.10) on the 'laws of Moses' and to reflect that these can bring vitality to us and warn us from straying away from our need to depend on God’s love to guide and direct us in our daily living. Since then (as the Book of God will show us), God has revealed Jesus who brings us into the everlasting joy and love and presence of God.

But the psalmist is also aware of the sinful tendencies lurking in every human heart.

¹²How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart? Cleanse me from these hidden faults.  ¹³Keep your servant from deliberate sins! Don’t let them control me.

The psalmist is painfully aware of his tendency to sin and his daily need for God’s grace to help him discern his faults.  I am reminded of the Muslim Haddith that speaks of the Prophet Mohammed’s claim that he ‘confessed his sins ninety nine times a day.’  The prophet of Islam had the humility to acknowledge his need to depend on Allah to avoid sin.  Those who murder the innocent, those who are prejudiced against others of different colour, race, religion, sex, education, intelligence, etc, are sinning against God, because God made and God loves all of his creation.

We are not called to blindly follow our religion or the instructions of others: we are called to meditate on instructions, to follow what our conscience tells us and to draw on God’s help to see through the faults lurking in our minds and emotions.  We are not to depend on our own understanding but to seek God’s help to be more like God (Allah) in his faithfulness and love for all people.  Those who misuse sacred texts in order to carry out their own prejudiced hatred of that which God loves, show that they despise the Creator God.  And they will suffer the consequences at God’s judgement day.

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