The voice of the Lord is over the waters. The God of glory thunders. The Lord over many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is full of majesty.
– Psalm 29:3–4
Oh, what a great chapter, Psalm 29, that talks about the voice of the Lord. If I were to keep reading, it just goes on and on talking about the voice of the Lord flashing forth flames of fire and shaking the wilderness.
Psalm 29:3–4 Speaks of the Power of God’s Words
These verses are particularly appropriate as my voice is struggling right now. But to be reminded of the power of the voice of God. His voice never struggles, it never weakens. It thunders over the waters in Psalm 29:3. It is powerful, verse four. It’s full of majesty. And I just want to encourage and pray for us today that we would constantly incline our ears to the powerful voice of the Lord, that you and I would meditate on his Word day and night. We would listen to it.
I don’t know if you have a regular Bible reading plan. Obviously, outside of just this few minute podcast, this podcast follows a Bible reading plan by Robert Murray M’Cheyne that I’ve used for many years. It involves reading either two chapters or four chapters a day. If you do four chapters a day, then in the course of a year you’ll read through the Old Testament once and the New Testament and Psalms twice. If you read two chapters a day, it takes you two years to do that. I actually prefer the two chapters a day option. It just gives more opportunity to pause and really meditate on what you’re reading.
But I would encourage you, whether that Bible reading plan or some Bible reading plan to prioritize regular reading of God’s Word, meditation on God’s Word, meaning soaking it in, praying through it much like we do on this podcast, that that would be your regular routine with the Lord day and night. That your heart and mind, that your ears would be constantly listening to the voice of the Lord.
Psalm 29:3–4 Encourages Us to Incline Our Hearts to God’s Word
And I was talking with somebody about this just yesterday in our church family because we use the same Bible reading plan together. Heather and I have used this together for a long time. It’s so good to walk through the Word and community with others who I would encourage you to invite others to read through a plan with you, whether in your home, in your church or wherever.
But I was talking with somebody yesterday. We had just been in one of these Psalms and we were just talking about how wonderful it is so often to wake up in the morning amidst what’s going on in our lives at that moment and to see how God’s Word meets us so powerfully and clearly where we are. Just one of the pictures of the power of God’s Word to apply so poignantly to our lives where we are on a daily basis.
So can we just praise God for his Word and pray that God would help us to be a people who experience the power of His Word in our lives on a daily basis? God, we praise you for your Word. We praise you for speaking, for revealing yourself to us. God, we praise you, not just for your revelation of your glory and all creation around us, but for your revelation of your glory and the Words of Scripture that you have given to us that tell us who you are and how you work and how we can live, how we can be reconciled to you, how we can walk with you. So God, we pray that you would help us to incline our ears to your powerful voice day and night.
Make us men and women, students, kids who meditate on your Word, who memorize it, who hide it in our hearts and fill our minds with it. And as we do, we pray that you would show the power of your Word, the majesty of your Word more and more and more to us. And God, even as we pray that in our own lives, we think about people around the world who don’t have access to your Word right now.
Praying for Bible Translations
God, please bless all those who are working on Bible translation, praise you for what you’re doing and through Illuminations and how Bible translation organizations are working together to get your Word translated even in the next 10 years into at least a portion of it in every language in the world. God made me so bless them. Help us to work together toward that end, to give toward that end.
God, we pray that every person in the world would have access to your powerful voice, your majestic voice and your Word God may it be so. Bless us as your church toward that end. Help us to make that possible with the resources you’ve given to us for every person in the world. And God, help us to share it today. Help us to speak your Word into others’ lives in ways that encourage and build them up or in ways that lead them. We pray to Jesus. God, we praise you for your powerful voice. We pray that you would show its power in our lives, in the lives of those around us today. God, we pray you’d show the power of your Word among every people group and every person in the world. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
