Hear My Voice

“Hear my voice according unto thy lovingkindness: O Lord, quicken me according to thy judgment.” (Psalm 119:149)

“Hear my voice”. A plea for God’s attention.

“According unto thy lovingkindness”. Lovingkindness comes from the Hebrew “Checed”. It is usually transliterated as “Mercy”. It means the exact same thing as mercy, it’s just the name lovingkindness, or love and kindness gives a better representation as to what it is.

God said I, “will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy.” (Exodus 33:19)

The Apostle Paul said, “For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” (Romans 9:15)

The Psalmist first asks for God’s attention. He then asks for His mercy, love, and kindness. Then, he asks the Lord to quicken him, or revive him, bring him back to life according to God’s judgment. Really? Most folks equivocate judgment with penalty, guilt, pain, retribution and sometimes even death. But the call for judgement is a call to be revived according to God’s will and way. It’s a conditional call that is asking for God’s conditions not man’s in his restoration process. This means righteousness and truth, which aren’t always band-aids to our wounds, but something better.

How many of us want to be saved from our troubles but on our terms? How many of us want to be restored back to how we were and not necessarily to how God wants us to be?

We must stop and consider why we have troubles, why we are broken. Even though we might not be aware of it, our situation is probably self-induced.

It happens to the holiest and the most righteous. If it doesn’t, then we have a problem.

“My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.” (Proverbs 3:11-12)

“For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.”

“If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.”

“Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.” (Hebrews 12:3-11)

Man is pain aversive. He very much desires pleasure, or at least to be pain free. A call for quickening according to the judgments of God is not going to be easy. This is why so many of us settle back into our routines and set ways; these are adverse conditions, bad situations that God is quickening us away from.

Everything resists change. It’s a basic law of physics and of spirit. Even when the change is from bad to good, resistance can be found. This why we shouldn’t take lightly what the Evangelist says, “no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous”.

But to those who are quickened according to God’s judgment, to those who endure the process in faith is the, “peaceable fruit of righteousness”.

Bill Hitchcock