Theology of a Song – King of My Heart
Psalm 36:5-7 “Your steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; your judgements are like the great deep; man and beast you save, O LORD. How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of man take refuge in the shadow of your wings.”
The words above are from David, and are a beautiful, poetic picture of how awesome God’s love and faithfulness is towards His people. But read the Bible long enough, and you’ll come to find that God’s love and faithfulness doesn’t always look how we think it should. After all, God’s chosen people are eventually taken into captivity and left wondering where their faithful God is in the midst of their darkest hour. I’m sure that very few were quick to remember and recite the beautiful words of David about God’s steadfast love while being marched off to Babylonian exile.
The prophet Daniel was part of those few. Look at what he prays on behalf of God’s people in Daniel 9:
“To you, O LORD, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame… because of the treachery that they have committed against you… To the LORD our God belongs mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God… Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his please for mercy, and for your own sake, O LORD, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate… For we do not present our please before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy.” Daniel 9:7-18
Daniel understands, like David, that mercy and justice belong to God. They are a part of who He is, just as much as your personality is a part of who you are. With this in mind, Daniel comes before the Lord in prayer asking that, for the sake of God’s glory, He would forgive and rescue His people. He asks that God would have mercy knowing full well that the Israelites have done nothing to deserve it. Daniel appeals to God’s character because He KNOWS who God is… He knows that God is good.
When we sing the chorus “You are good, You are good, You are good…,” and “You’re never gonna let me down…” in the song King of My Heart, we are proclaiming with David, with Daniel, with Paul, and with many others that God is inherently good! Despite the circumstances around us, and the suffering and trials that we may face in day to day life, that God will always be merciful, He will always be just, and He will always be righteous! A song such as this is a reminder to our souls that we are not the king of our own hearts! When we start to drift into thinking that we are the king of our own hearts, we start to blame God for all of the pain in our lives. But as Daniel rightly acknowledges, the pain in our lives is a result of sin, not a result of God’s unfaithfulness.
He is the mountain where we run, the fountain to drink from, the anchor in the waves, and wind inside our sails. Let us never let the enemy trick us into thinking that God is anything less than those things. He is worthy of being called good, and He has made it clear on the cross that He will never let us down.
With you and for you in Christ,
Pastor Ryan
Categories: Evergreen Connection