The heart-rate has gone up, chest feels tighter, my shoulders have tensed up and my eyes keep darting all over the place. It sounds like I should be on a hockey pitch, but the reality is that I'm at my desk, it's 11 o'clock and already I'm behind on where I wanted to be today. September stress has returned to welcome me into the new term.The to-do list grows. I didn't manage to get nearly enough done over those 'quiet' summer months! Did I rest enough? It's starting to get dark when I wake up. The 'Life Admin' that I've spent two months ignoring is now shouting at me. I feel that people's expectations of me are growing again. The house gets messier quicker when there are actually people in it. Meetings of all sorts have restarted, taking up precious working time just as the inbox piles up again. Food bill goes up, though the time available to eat goes down. Everyone around me seems to be affected to, and relationships are taking a hit. There's a sense of disappointment that the summer never was quite what I hoped for, and a fear that I won't make it as far as Christmas...
One thing's for certain, as September gets under way, my eyes have drifted (and been dragged) down from Jesus to see only myself and the tasks and people surrounding me.
Psalm 27 has got me asking the question - what am I seeking? Am I seeking a comfortable term? A life without fear? A to-do list I'm in control of? Am I seeking to be well-thought of in the eyes of others? Someone who just understands? Smiles all the time? Am I seeking to be rid of all serious responsibility? A sense of complete satisfaction? Yes! All of those things, it seems! Which is why Ps 27:8 hit me:
My heart says of you, "Seek his face!"Psalm 27 is a song that redirects my fear away from the term ahead to the Lord, that calls my heart to seek His presence, that wakens my voice from groans of self-pity to shouts of joy, that fills my body with His strength, that slows my pace to wait for the Lord. It lifts my eyes from myself to the Lord, not so that I forget my circumstances, but so that I see His beauty and so seek Him in my circumstances.
Your face, O Lord, I will seek.
So I've made a plan this term to memorise Psalm 27. Firstly, so that in attempting to memorise it, I stop letting my eyes drift down from Him so much. And secondly, so that when I feel my eyes being dragged down from Him, I have these wonderful truths on the tip of my tongue to meditate on, keeping me seeking His face.
If you would like help to memorise Psalm 27 too, here are two things that might help!
www.memverse.com or scripturetyper.com, or other online tools
Matt Seales' song on Psalm 27:
