Beyond Sunday: The Weight of God's Hand

[Editor's note: Beyond Sunday is a Monday refresher to carry you through the week.]

Focus Verse of the Week

For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. (Psalms 32:4)

Commentary

If God's finger can crush us, what must his hand be like, and that pressing heavily and continuously! Under terrors of conscience, men have little rest by night, for the grim thoughts of the day dog them to their rooms and haunt their dreams, or else they lie awake in a cold sweat of dread. God's hand is very helpful when it uplifts, but it is awful when it presses down: better a world on the shoulder, like Atlas, than God's hand on the heart, like David.

The sap of his soul was dried, and the body through sympathy appeared to be without its needful fluids. The oil was almost gone from the lamp of life, and the flame flickered as though it would soon go out. Unconfessed sins, like a fierce poison, dried up the fountain of the man's strength and made him like a tree blasted by the lightning, or a plant withered by the scorching heat of a tropical sun. Alas! for a poor soul when it has learned its sin but forgets its Saviour, it goes hard with it indeed.

(Adapted from Charles Spurgeon's Treasury of David.)

A Thought to Keep

God uses correction to bring us to repentance. While such correction is never enjoyable, this very same correction proves His love and care for us.