Psalm 65 - The good things of your house

Read: Psalm 65 vs 1-13

Yesterday we were reading Psalm 64 and there we found ourselves reading through words of lament. Today we come to Psalm 65, it is a Psalm of praise. It’s interesting how the Psalms order things, or to be more accurate don’t order things. The book of Psalms doesn’t have sections on ‘praise’, ‘lament’, ‘thanksgiving’, ‘requests’ etc. Rather these very different emotions and life moments are mixed throughout the book. Thankful one moment, struggling the next, singing God’s praise in one Psalm and then wrestling to see His goodness in the next. 

This is what the life of faith looks like. This is what real life looks like. It is because we are ‘up and down’ in our emotions and experiences that the Psalms come to steady us and prepare us for what life can bring. Just as it can be good to read a Psalm of praise if we are down, so it can be good to read a Psalm of lament if we are happy.

Psalm 65 is based in ‘Zion’ (another name for Jerusalem), the ‘city of peace’, David’s capital where the Temple would one day be built. Faith takes hold today of things that will be true tomorrow. In vs 4 David talks about being filled with ‘the good things’ of God’s holy temple. What is striking is that the temple wasn’t even built in David’s lifetime, it was only built when his son Solomon took the throne. However God had promised that it would be built (2 Samuel 7:13). Faith gives thanks for God’s promises, even the ones that are still to be kept. 

So David can give thanks for how God makes atonement (see the footnote in the NIV) for the sins of His people (vs 3), even though that promise would only be fulfilled centuries later when another Son of David would die upon a cross.

One day peoples from all nations (vs 2) will gather before God in worship, a multitude that no one will be able to number (Revelation 7:9). Like David we can thanks for that today. This future fact can strengthen us and deepen our trust in God’s greatness in the here and now. Praise awaits God today (vs 1). Let Psalm 65 be your words, thanking God for what He has done and for all that is yet to come.

Prayer: Father thank you for your promises. Thank you that one day a vast multitude of people from every nation, tribe, people, will gather before your throne and give glory to Jesus. Keep my head up, keep me looking forward today. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.