These all look to you, to give them their food in due season. When you give it to them, they gather it up. When you open your hand, they’re filled with good things.
– Psalm 104:27–28
I love this picture near the end of Psalm 104, as the psalmist has just been counting all the different works of God in creation, how God makes springs gush forth in the valleys, and to flow between the hills, that give drink to every beast of the field. The wild donkeys quench their thirst.
Psalm 104:27–28 portrays God as the Sustainer of all things.
The psalm talks about how trees are watered abundantly, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted, and young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God. The whole picture in Psalm 104 is that God is the sustainer of life on earth, of trees and vegetation, of animals, of every living thing.
Verse 27, “These all look to you to give them their food. When you give it to them, they gathered up. You open your hand, and they’re filled with good things.”
This is where I just want to remind us that we are living things, obviously in a unique way, created in the image of God, but he sustains us. Like every breath that we are breathing right now is because God is giving it to us. Any food we eat or water we drink today is because of God’s good provision to us.
I just want to encourage you today to look to God, to Psalm 104:27, to look to God, to give you everything you need today, to pause throughout today, and think about things that you take for granted, including breath, water, and food. Thank God for these things. Then just keep going. Thank God for all kinds of good things.
Let’s open our hands before God, praise him, and thank him today for all the good things he provides in our lives, specifically good things that we often take for granted. As we do, let’s live and worship God as the sustainer of our lives, and the provider of good things that fill our lives. Let’s draw closer to him.
Psalm 104:27–28 encourages thankfulness and praise towards God.
Oh God, we praise you for all the ways you provide for us on a daily basis, even reading the Psalm, and thinking about this. God forgive us for how often we take good things for granted without pausing to give thanks. You tell us in your Word to give thanks in all circumstances. God help us to be thankful, people to live thankful lives, to thank you… To praise you for the breath in our lungs, and the beating in our hearts… For your provision of food and water, for your provision of health in different ways.
God, we thank you for friends. We thank you for family. Lord, we thank you for leading and guiding our steps in this world. We thank you for victory over sin, and death. Jesus, we thank you for dying on the cross to pay the price for our sins… For rising from the grave so we could have eternal life so that we could have eternal sustenance in you.
Oh God, we praise you that even when we breathe our last breath here, you will still sustain us, and bring us into your presence for eternity. Thank you for your promises of a new heaven, and a new earth filled with good things, totally free from sin.
Oh God, we praise you as the author and generous giver of all good things. We praise you as the sustainer of our lives, the Savior of our lives. God, we pray that you’d help us to spread the good news of your sustenance… Your salvation, your goodness, and your grace to all who trust in you.
Prayer for the Khvarshi People
Lord, help us to be generous with the gospel today in our lives. And generous with the gospel in the world. God, we pray for the Khvarshi people of Russia, the small people group in remote southwestern mountains of Dagestan. Lord, please cause the Khvarshi people to be reached with the good news of your grace, and your love in Jesus.
God, as you sustain their physical lives, we pray for your salvation to spread, for the sustenance of eternal life in them. Please God, we pray that for the Khvarshi people. We pray that you would use our lives to point people to you… As the only sustainer of life, savior of our souls, and provider of every good thing. We pray all of this in the name of Jesus, the savior, and sustainer of our souls. 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.
