“I have set the Lord always before me;
Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved.”

True life

In many of the psalms, there is an urgent concern with physical danger, or attack from Israel’s warring enemies. But this Psalm looks beyond the physical suffering of this life, to the joy of a life of faith and complete trust in God; a trust that accepts whatever suffering this world may bring, even earthly death, as nothing compared to the overwhelming and powerful, loving care of God.
The final two verses speak of God’s love overcoming death, a hope that was fulfilled in Jesus. And it speaks of God’s presence being true life, a life of joy forever.

10 For You will not leave my soul in Sheol,
Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption.
11 You will show me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Faith

In verse 8:
Line 1 (“I have set the Lord always before me”) is a commitment of faith. This contrasts with people in verse 4, “who hasten after another god”.
Line 2 (“Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved”) acknowledges that even our faith is not due to us, it is a gift of God, as stated in Ephesians 2:8, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God”. It is only due to his presence and guidance in our lives that we are able to stand firm in faith.
That has certainly been my experience.
It is so easy to allow our focus to move onto those “other gods” of earthly idols, and not just the obvious ones of wealth, power, and status. Even God’s gifts can become idols when we focus on them and claim them as ours, instead of trusting and giving all glory to He who gave them.

God’s gifts

Some of God’s gifts that give pleasure in my life, are:

Oil painting – is a great source of joy for me, but only as I remember the pleasure is from God, and not due to me. In my experience, people in the art world who put on airs of great skill and knowledge are very boring. And since the art establishment has largely removed God from the picture, it has in general become twisted, and lost an appreciation of the beauty of God’s creation. But it is great to hear about exceptions to that trend.

Family and Friends – while I delight in their company, I need to remember the question of why God has brought them into my life, what purpose am I to serve for these people? Family relations can easily descend into self-centred expectations and obligations, a sense of being owed something, that easily leads to conflict.

Technology – I have no interest in technology for its own sake, but in the application of computers to solve problems for people, first at work, and more recently with applications in church and bible study on Zoom, it has became a major focus. But only as I follow God’s leading in serving His people, will it continue to be of interest.

Wisdom and knowledge – I delight in learning about the wonder of God’s created world, including all life, and humanity created in His image. It’s not about knowledge for personal advancement. The pleasure of learning about God’s creation ultimately leads us to learn more about God as the creator; and the more we learn, the greater is our sense of awe and humility before Him.

That reminds me of a video I saw last week about the Dunning-Kruger effect, where two researchers had graphed people’s level of confidence against their level of knowledge about a subject. They found the maximum level of confidence of people occurred with only very little knowledge; confidence tended to decrease as they learnt more, and it was only at the highly expert levels that confidence increased again, but even then it was still less than for those who had very little knowledge.
This bears out Proverbs 9:10, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”. It’s only in our humility that learning can begin, knowing that we depend completely upon God. Our strength and constancy are given by His presence, as we allow His spirit to live in us and direct us.

Thanks be to God!