Room For Only One God

PREVIEW: Wrestling with the decision of godship, that is, the decision who or what will exercise control and rule from the throne of our heart, is more prevalent than we care to admit. While the decision should be made once and for all, the fact of the matter is it is a daily match for most of us. How so? When we fret and worry over matters we can’t control, when we meddle and manipulate to get our plans fulfilled, when we come to God after the fact for help, when we pray as a last rather that a first resort, when we cut corners in our financial stewardship because we can’t afford to give to the Lord’s work, and when we put our hope in government (or anything else) at the expense of our trust in God, in effect, we have removed God from his rightful throne. However, when we surrender to God’s supreme rule over our lives, then the very things we futilely attempt to attain on our own—grace, security, confidence, contentment, and hope—inexorably come our way. There is room for only one God in your life, so let God be God.

A Journey of Worship // Psalm 131:1

There is only One who is God—and that’s not you! That is what King David is saying of himself in this brief song of assent. The Message translates verse one this way:

God, I’m not trying to rule the roost,
I don’t want to be king of the mountain.
I haven’t meddled where I have no business
or fantasized grandiose plans.

Wrestling with the decision of godship, the decision of who or what will exercise control and rule from the throne of our heart, is more prevalent than we care to admit. While the decision should be made once and for all, the fact of the matter is it is a daily match for most of us. How so? When we fret and worry over matters we can’t control, when we meddle and manipulate to get our plans fulfilled, when we come to God after the fact for help, when we pray as a last rather than a first resort, when we cut corners in our financial stewardship because we can’t afford to give to the Lord’s work, and when we put our hope in government (or anything else) at the expense of our trust in God, in effect, we have removed God from his rightful throne.

There is room for only one God in your life, so let God be God. He has a perfect track record in that role, you know, and you don’t.

And, by the way, when you allow God to be God, good things happen for you:

• You become the recipient of greater grace. Recognizing God’s rightful role takes true humility (the opposite of pride and haughtiness), as David describes, “My heart is not proud, O LORD,
  my eyes are not haughty”—Psalm 131:1a. Of course, the Bible repeatedly tells us this is always the catalyst for greater grace. (Proverbs 3:34)
• You become the recipient of greater security. You put things that are above your pay grade back into the hands of the only One wise enough to handle them—what David calls “great matters or things too wonderful for me”—Psalm 131:1b (See how Paul describes them in Romans 11:33-36)
• You become the recipient of greater confidence. Someone else is running the universe, which means you don’t carry that great weight upon your shoulders. David says, “But I have stilled and quieted my soul”—Psalm 131:2a … which is possible only when you first walk with the Shepherd who leads you beside quite waters and restores your soul.
• You become the recipient of greater contentment. David describes it “like a baby content in its mother’s arms, my soul is a baby content”—Psalm 131:2b (MSG) Paul says, “Godliness with contentment is great gain.” (I Timothy 6:6)
• You become the recipient of greater hope. “O Israel, put your hope in the Lord both now and forevermore”—Psalm 131:3. It is by Biblical hope, as Paul teaches, “we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?” (Romans 8:24) “Hope” as Paul says in Romans 5:5, “does not disappoint us…”

Hmmm…grace, security, confidence, contentment, hope. I think I’ll let God be God!