Are our lives significant?  Do we have enough substance?  Do we fear being exposed as a fraud?  This morning, Bruce tackled these questions by looking at Psalm 62.  In Psalm 62, David is speaking directly to God, and he asks two questions:  First, he asks how long he will be persecuted in this life.  But then, David pauses and asks a bigger, more substantive question: Is my life significant, does it matter?  In response to this question, David writes:  “One thing God has spoken, two things I have heard:  that you, O God are strong, and that you, O Lord, are loving.  Surely you will reward each person according to what he has done.”  

 

As Bruce unpacked David’s words in Psalm 62, he pointed out that because we know that God is strong and loving, he gives our lives weight and substance. God has granted beauty, joy, grace, contentment and life, and he is not interested merely in helping us manage our lives.  Rather, he longs to give our souls weight.  Once we dare to ask God this provocative question—does my life matter, is it significant? — He will re-weight our lives, and from that place of gravity and significance, we will become equipped to answer other of life’s important questions.     

 

What do you take away from David’s exchange with God in Psalm 62?  A few things struck me about this scripture and Bruce’s discussion this morning.  First, I was struck by the intentional pause in the scripture before David shifted his thoughts to ask his second, more meaningful question.  I wonder what to make of the pause.  It seems to me that unless I actively pause in the midst of my crazy life, I might end up repeatedly asking God the same questions, but never getting to the really meaty, significant question(s).  What, if anything, does the pause mean to you? 

 

Second, I found myself wondering whether all of us share the same meaning of “significance” in this context.  What would it mean for you to have a life of “significance”?  What is important to you about having a life of significance?  How would your life change if you truly believed that your life matters?  

 

Finally, as I read Psalm 62, my eye is repeatedly drawn to verse 5:  “Find rest, O my soul, in God alone.”  As I read this, I reflect on all the things and people other than God that I have looked to in an effort to determine whether my life is significant.  Where do you look to find significance in life?  Can you trust the answers you get from those sources?  Have you ever asked God whether your life matters?  As you grapple with these questions this week, consider that Jesus saw the state of our souls and still deemed us worthy of dying on the cross to save us.        

 

   

*Note:  If you wish, you can look up this and other Bible passages online at biblegateway.com 

 

Copyright © 2008 Amy Langdon