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Psalm 67:1-3
Sometimes
you only hear the part you want to hear. The child who is promised ice cream if
she cleans her room may forget to pick up her toys, but she won’t forget the
promise of sweets—that’s the part she heard. The teenager whose parents tell
him they’ll buy him a car if he keeps his grades up, pays for his own gas, and
works a part-time job hears only one thing: I’m getting a car! This pattern
continues even through adulthood—we are quick to hear and remember a promise,
but we don’t always make out the sounds of responsibility. We hear only what we
want to hear.
One
of the times we most commonly practice this selective listening is when we read
Scripture. In the passage above, the opening words—“May God be gracious to us
and bless us and make His face shine upon us”—are likely familiar to you.
You’ve heard them in invocations, seen them on wall decorations, and perhaps
even claimed them as a personal prayer. Asking God for His blessing is both a
good and a common prayer for many believers.
What
is rarer is a knowledge of the words that follow. The psalmist asks for God’s
blessing at the outset, but when you keep reading, you get a better
understanding of why: “that Your way may be known upon earth, Your saving power
among all nations.” God’s blessing is requested not for selfish motivations,
not for health or wealth or power, but so that others might know God. The
prayer for blessing, seemingly about what God can do for the psalmist, is
actually grounded in a desire to see others flourish.
It
is easy to selectively hear the Bible’s promises, to cling so tightly to the
joy of salvation and the hope of eternal life that you miss the
responsibilities of discipleship. Psalm 67 can serve as a reminder that the
believer’s prayer for blessing should start with these words: “thy kingdom
come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” May you seek God’s help in
all things—not so you would be glorified, but so that He would be through you.
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