“I remember the days of old, I meditate on all that you have done. I ponder the work of your hands.”
– Psalm 143:5
Do you ever do that? Do you ever just sit back before God and remember what God has done in the past? Meditate on all that God has done. Just ponder the work of his hands. This is a really valuable thing to do. In fact, I want to lead us to do this in prayer right now.
Psalm 143:5 Reminds Us to Meditate On God’s Faithfulness
Father, we look back and meditate on all You have done and rejoice that You are faithful. Use our lives for the display of Your glory.
I just want us to pray together and as we pray, let’s just meditate on what God has done in the past. Like big picture past in history, let’s ponder the work of God’s hands in prayer. In a way that I trust will bring strength in the present and hope for the future by looking to the past at what God has done.
So God we remember right now, we ponder the work of your hands. When you spoke, your word says, you spoke and said, let there be light and there was all of a sudden light. You spoke and mountains came into being. You spoke and mountains came into being and water was poured forth in the land. Where there was no such thing as water before then you made it, you made the thing called water. It just appeared. Then you filled it with fish.
Psalm 143:5 Leads Us to Praise God
God, we ponder the work of your hands. All of the creatures in the sea right now, you have made them all. Every single one of them designed by you and every creature on the land. God, we think about lions and cheetahs and birds and little tiny ants and termites. We don’t understand why you made termites God, but you have made all these creatures and every single one of them gets its food from you, its sustenance from you.
We praise you for your work in creation. And that was just the first chapter of the Bible. Oh God, we didn’t even mention it all. Then all the things you did after that, God, we praise you for the way you gave Abraham and Sarah a child when they had no hope left of having a child and you provided. God, how you did that so many different times in scripture.
God, we praise you for how you delivered your people out of slavery. That was awesome. That was awesome. Like all those plagues, oh God, the way you split the Red Sea in half, how incredible was that? Oh God, you did that. You, the one we’re speaking to right now, just split the sea in half and sent your people through on dry land. That was incredible.
This Verse Reminds Us of God’s Faithfulness
God. When you told your people just to play some music and walls came crashing down around Jericho. That was amazing. God, we praise you for your power at work that day. God, we praise you for what you did through David facing a giant. Just like he said, it would be clear that the battle belongs to you and indeed it did. God, you enable this little servant boy to crush a giant. The way God you saved Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in a fiery furnace. How incredible was that?
Lord the way you even showed up in a supernatural way among them and astounded the king. And then God, what you did with Daniel, a whole night in a den of lions and you shut their mouths, totally. God, we praise your name for all that. You have done all that you did all throughout the Old Testament, the New Testament we haven’t even gotten to. You came to us incarnation, born through a virgin to a world in need and you came to us in love and mercy. The incarnation, Jesus, God in the flesh.
This Verse Leads Us to Glorify God
God, all glory be to your name and then he lived a perfect life, Jesus. And then you died on the cross for our sins. We praise you for what you’ve done. You rose from the dead, you conquered death. Then you caused this good news to start to go everywhere in the world. And people were giving their lives to make it known. And miracles were happening and people were being raised from the dead and being delivered out of prison. Like God, we could go on and on.
I’ve already gone longer than we try to keep this podcast. Like we could go on and on meditating all that you have done and pondering the work of your hands.
So in a fresh way then, in this moment we say, God, we trust you. We praise you. We love you and worship you. God, we surrender to you. Work in our lives, however you want, lead our lives, direct our lives, have your way in our lives. Work. May our lives be your workmanship, the work of your hands, our families, our churches do whatever you want in our midst to display your glory in even greater ways in our days. We remember the days of old, like in Psalm 143:5, and meditate on all that you’ve done, ponder the work of your hands and worship you in Jesus’ name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder and Chairman of Radical, an organization that helps people follow Jesus and make him known in their neighborhood and all nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, and Don’t Hold Back.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
