Keeping Watch Over Us

21 FEBRUARY

Awake, why sleepest Thou, O LORD? arise, cast us not off forever. Psalm 44:23

SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Isaiah 43:1-7

In this verse the saints express the desire that God, in pity for them, will at length send them help and deliver them. Although God allows  the saints to plead with Him in this babbling manner, asking Him to rise up or awaken, they should be fully persuaded that God continually keeps watch for their safety and defense.

We must guard against the notion of Epicurus, whose god, having his abode in heaven, delighted only in idleness and pleasure. But since the insensibility of our nature is so great that we do not fully comprehend the care that God has for us, the godly here request that God will be pleased to give them some evidence that he is neither forgetful of them nor slow to help them. 

Likewise we must firmly believe that God ceases not to regard us, even though He appears to be doing so. Yet such assurance is of faith and not of the flesh, that is to say, it is not natural to us. Thus the faithful often give utterance before God to this contrary sentiment, which they conceive from the state of things as they see it. In doing so, they discharge from their beasts those morbid affections that belong to the corruption of nature, and which then allows faith to shine forth in its pure and native character.

It may be objected that though nothing is more holy than prayer, prayer may become defiled when some forward imagination of the flesh is mingled with it. I confess that is true, but in using the freedom which the Lord grants to us, let us consider that in the goodness and mercy by which He sustains us, God wipes away this fault so that our prayers are not defiled by it.

John Calvin

FOR MEDITATION: Just as our eyelids protect our eyes every moment of a day, so God watches over us and protects us moment by moment. Think of some ways that God protects you without your being aware of it.

365 Days With Calvin

Selected and Edited by Joel R. Beeke