Further thoughts on Psalm 65

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The Goodness of our Father

"Blessed are those you choose and bring near to live in your courts. We are filled with the good things of your house, of your holy temple" (Psa.65. 4 NIV)

When David wrote those words he probably would have not thought appropriate to have called God, Father although such an idea was not totally unknown in the    Psalms (89.26; 103.13). He certainly knew Him as a shepherd, probably from boyhood. But the Scriptures abound with the idea of drawing close to God. In this Psalm 65, there is a wonderful sense that the good things which we enjoy each day are the bounty of God. This is the sense of thanksgiving at harvest. For Israel, the end of one year and the beginning of the next was at harvest time. So the Ingathering and rejoicing was, as it were, a time when God was crowning the year with His goodness.

Those of us who are greatly privileged to live in lands of plenty do well to take stock of what God has done in the physical world for us. Sadly, many millions are not able to share our rejoicing. At times of famine and drought it must seem that God has turned away from His creatures and that He no longer cares.

This psalm, joyful as it is in the good things of the Earth, is also concerned "with the good things of your house". Jesus told Satan that "man shall not live by bread alone" for He had 'food they knew not what'.

As we turn the page of another year we look back and give thanks for whatever joy in worship and fellowship we have had and for whatever our Father has given in Christian experience. Is there a famine of spiritual things? Do the days seem lonely and uneventful? Is there no occasion to rejoice that God has overruled all things for our eternal welfare. "In everything give thanks" (Eph. 5.20). If we are grumbling about anyone or anything, we are being disobedient to God's word. Let us look back, and count our blessings, naming them one by one, and we shall be surprised what the Lord has done.