Psalm 90 (Lord, Satisfy Me)

When we wake up each morning, we have certain expectations of the day. They may be quite modest, depending on the challenges of life at the time or on the gifts that our Creator has placed before and in us. They may be extravagant, with hardly realistic expectations or at least highest hopes for some breakthrough or some windfall that will change at least some aspects of our lives. Thinking of our dreams for the day may well be worth nothing if it depends on our own abilities to shape the course of the day and guide what is happening to and around us. Christians, however, wake up in conversation with our Lord, who has the whole world in his hands and the unfolding of every day in history under his control.

We awaken in the realization that only the sustaining hand of the Lord has kept us breathing through the night.  As our eyes open, we become aware of a familiar environment in our home, and we recognize that the presence of Jesus Christ is part of that environment. There are many things to which we awaken, perhaps a crying child, perhaps a thunderclap, perhaps thoughts of conversations at work that are scheduled for the day, perhaps a list for a shopping trip. But we always awake to the love of Christ that has rescued us from our sinfulness and has restored us to God’s family as part of the body of Christ. We know that his love for us went into his plan to call us as his own formulated before the foundation of the world. We know that his love remains with us until he expresses it directly on the Last Day, our day of liberation.

Jesus makes us bold to pray, “Lord, give me what I need for today.” “Satisfy” does not mean that we are asking for an overflowing of good things to eat, or praise from family, friends, or fellow workers. “Satisfy” means “give me what I need; give me what is enough for me for this day.” “Satisfy me this morning” focuses on my immediate needs, trusting that when others arise, God the Satisfier will be there throughout out the day, ready to satisfy me in new circumstances, at a new time.  For I realize that I am waking up enfolded in Jesus’s loving arms.

So, it is with us in the midst of the blinding darkness that our own sin or evil inflicted by others can drape over us. Even when we think that we can perceive—we hope accurately but we know still in blurry fashion—figures and elements that can shape our future, we are still uncertain, confused, questioning our own judgment, seeking some voice to provide us with what we need to know to find our own through the dimming shadows of the world around us.  Then comes the voice of the Shepherd, as if out of nowhere.  In the midst of all the traps and snares, all the bottomless pits that loom up before us and all the tiny occasions to stumble and fall flat on our faces in the midst of the mire, there comes a voice that conveys the light of Eden. This voice that creates the new life of a child of God right there in the thick of the darkness.

We recognize that the various sorts of stumbling blocks, temptations, challenges, or setbacks may not make today the day we had imagined it could and should be.  But we recognize that this day, like every day, is part of our Creator’s great plan for his universe and for me as an individual, for the communities into which he has called me to do his work.  Into his plan we have been incorporated, as the Holy Spirit has led us to carry out in our own space on this day what he has called us to do to provide for the people around us.  We move into the day with the confidence that not only does our Creator keep track of the hairs of our heads but that he also knows how the minutes and hours of this day will unfold as part of his larger but very detailed plan for the course of his creation.

When we wake up commending the day into the hands of our God by praying that he gives us what we need—not necessarily the same thing as what we want—we open up the day to rejoicing.  The joy that flows into a day begun by looking to the Lord and by opening our ears to his guidance for the day radiates a peace into the day as well, a peace that steadies us when things get shaky and turns our joy into the melody that accompanies all that we have to do.  That joy and gladness reflect the fact that waking up with the Lord’s presence at hand assures us that home is wherever God has placed us because God’s presence constitutes our home.  He is the one who always wants to take us in, even when no one else finds us good enough to let through the door.  Forty years ago, a sitcom titled “Cheers” described the place that everyone needs, a home, “the place where everybody knows your name.”  God is the person who will always know your name and claim you as his child.

God has never left you alone.  He always knows your name.

Thus, we pray that our every day begins with our recognition that the Lord is giving me enough, whatever I need for the day. In that spirit we pray to be humble children of our God, those who acknowledge with joy that he is the source of all that we are and have, that we can be in this day as his children. For we live in such a way that other children of God notice that God is providing what we need and that they recognize that his ever-open hand supplies what is necessary for us to be carrying out the work that he has given us to do. For his care for us not only addresses us with his goodness and generosity.  His providing for us also demonstrates to those around us that God is faithful in his promise to hear our prayers and to furnish us with the necessities of the day.

Therefore, each dawn cracks over those who trust in Christ not just as a new day but as a new day at home, with Jesus, a day on which he has promised to supply us with what we need, a day on which he will keep us as safe as he kept us during the night, a day that he planned before time began in Eden, a plan that establishes what I do as service to him.  In this way we commend the twenty-four hours to come into his hands, and we rejoice to be at home with him.