Psalm 53 reads
almost identical to Psalm 14 so I went back to look at what I wrote about Psalm
14 on May 30, 2015. I said there that
nothing major really grabbed me in those verses except that the overall theme
of God being on the side of the oppressed was present there. It is present in these verses as well as the
Psalmist talks about evil, non believers who devouring the people. The Psalm starts off Saying that it is fools
who say there is no God. Our world is
crawling with fools today. People who
can’t see and experience God in the midst of their pain, trauma and
struggles. One thing that grabs me is
that “God looks down from heaven on humans to see if anyone is wise, to see if
anyone seeks God. The contrast here is
between the fool who doesn’t believe and the wise who seek God.
As I reflect on
belief and unbelief I am drawn to the sermon preparation I have done this week
in John 6:24-35. Jesus addresses some of
the differences between belief and unbelief there as well. In this passage Jesus has just completed the
miracle of the feeding of the 5,000.
That wasn’t enough for the crowd to believe though. They come to him right on the heels of that
asking what other signs he was going to perform. They wanted more.
Rob Fuquay in his
book, The God We Can Know, Exploring the “I
Am” Sayings of Jesus, talks about this notion of wanting more in a chapter
entitled “I Am the Bread of Life”: “Knowing
God’s Satisfaction.” In this chapter he
talks about the difference between being full and being satisfied. He says that we live in a culture that is
always seeking fullness. Our world is
full of noise, communication, and stuff.
It is never enough. He quotes J.D.
Rockefeller who when asked “how much money was enough, responded just a little
bit more.”[1] How true that is. We spend our days saying if only rather than
seeing them as a day full of gifts. We
put our belief and our happiness into the “if only” rather then in our God who
satisfies our every need. Rob wonders
what it would be like if we approached every day like we approached Christmas morning
as kids. What if we woke up every day
expecting and looking for gifts rather than missing what we think we don’t
have? What if rather than chasing fullness we seek God. That is the difference between the fool and
the wise. What will you seek today? Will you seek the fullness that tells you
that there is never enough or will seek God who fully satisfies?
[1]
Rob Fuquay, The God We Can Know,
Exploring the “I Am” sayings of Jesus. (Nashville,
Upper Room Books, 2014) Pp. 25-38
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