“How precious is your steadfast love, oh God? The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house and you give them drink from the river of your delights.”
– Psalm 36:7–8
Is that not awesome imagery here in Psalm 36:7–8? Just overwhelming, amazing imagery as you reflect on the love of God in your life, just make this personal. I think about my time with the Lord this morning, just so overwhelmed by God’s goodness and grace toward me, God’s faithfulness toward me and God’s love toward me that I don’t deserve. I don’t deserve any of it. And he’s been so gracious to me.
So just to sing this from your heart, how precious is your steadfast love, oh God? Your love is precious to me, oh God. The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings to know in this turbulent world, amidst all of its trials and temptations and challenges that there is a refuge for you who trust in the love of God. You can find yourself living in this turbulent world in the shadow of his wings.
The God of the universe, who reigns sovereign over everything, loves you.
And then in here Psalm 36:7–8, verse eight, they feast on the abundance of your house and you give them drink from the river of your delights. What great imagery. I invite you today to a feast on the abundance of God’s love and goodness for you. Feast on that today. Feast on this in your life. Be encouraged today. God, the God of the universe, the God who reigns sovereign over everything, over all the nations, who holds the nations like a drop of water in his hands. This God loves you. And this God invites you to feast on the abundance of his house today. And to drink, yes, drink water today or coffee or whatever, but drink the most from the river of God’s delights.
That river is flowing through your life right now for you to drink from. I don’t know what you’re going through right now, but I just want to encourage you today in this moment to see how precious the steadfast love of God is for you, not just the world. Yes, he loves the world. But we’re talking about you, for all who trusted in Jesus, who know him, who are his children, his sons and daughters. He loves you, right where you were sitting, standing, walking, driving right now, whatever you’re doing, he loves you. So feast on the abundance of his house and drink. Drink deeply today from the river of his delights.
Psalm 36:7–8 Reminds Us of the Preciousness of God’s Love
God, we praise you for your goodness, your grace and your mercy in our lives. God, I praise you for your grace and your goodness and your mercy in my life that I don’t deserve. I don’t deserve any of it, none of it. None of us do, God. None of us do. We all deserve judgment before you. We’ve turned against you, aside from you. We’ve rebelled against you. We deserve condemnation before you. Yet here we are drinking from the river of your delights and feasting on the abundance of your house, of your goodness toward us. We are able to say how precious to us is your steadfast love, oh God. So we say it. Yes, your love is precious. It’s more precious than anything. In Psalm 63 kind of way, your love is better than life, so precious to us.
The Abundance of God’s House
So we take our place right now in the shadow of your wings and we feast on the abundance of your house. We feast on your mercy and your grace and your wisdom and your peace and your strength and your comfort and all these things you promise to give us that we are able to feast on right now in this world, in the midst of whatever we’re walking through. And we drink today from the river of your delights.
God, I pray for those who are struggling in different ways, maybe in their faith, maybe in just different circumstances they’re walking through at home or work, or church or just in the world, whatever it might be. God, I pray that they would drink today from the river of your delights in the middle of this turbulent world. And God, as we pray all these things in our own lives, we pray for those who don’t know the abundance of your house, who don’t know the preciousness of your steadfast love.
Prayer To Spread the News of God’s Steadfast Love
And God, we pray that you would use us today to share the gospel with people around us. God, we pray for the spread of your steadfast love around the world. God, we pray today for the house of people in Niger, 12 million of them, almost all of them Muslim, though some who are there. I think about missionary friends of mine who live among the house in Niger had been working for years for so many years among them. God, I pray for you. We pray together for your blessings on them, on the believers who are there, on the churches who are there. And we pray for the spread of your steadfast love through them.
Even as we pray that you would help them today, those brothers and sisters we have in Christ among the house of God, may they drink deeply from the river of your delights that, hey, may they feast on the abundance of your house and find refuge in the shadow of your wings. May they know, in a deeper way today, the preciousness of your steadfast love. God, may you use their lives to make your love known among more and more and more how so we pray.
God, we praise you for your grace and your love in our lives. And we pray that as we feast on the abundance of your house, that we would invite others here and among the nations to feast with us. In Jesus’ name, we pray, the name of the one who makes the river of these delights ours. In his 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.
