January 17, 2017: Day 17 – Psalm 17

I do want to draw your attention to Dot Rineer’s comment from yesterday’s blog.  If you don’t know how to get to the comments on the blogs you can find them below my post in very light blue letters.  You’ll see them.  Just about every day someone has commented on a blog.  She introduced me to Shane and Shane who have put out songs on some of the Psalms.  Yesterday’s Psalm 16 can be found here. 

It might be worth to see if they have one for every day.  I just looked it up, I don’t see a version of Psalm 17.  

So, what is Psalm 17 about?  It does remind me of someone who is running full steam through a dense forest crying out to the Lord for help.  But what I noticed just now is giving me goose bumps.  Look at vs. 8 and we find the phrase: “guard me as the apple of the eye.”  Shakespeare has made that phrase famous for modern day readers in his A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  This isn’t the only place in the Bible where we find that term.  We see it in Deuteronomy 32:10, Proverbs 7:2, Lamentations 2:18, Zechariah 2:8.  In the Hebrew the phrase is literally:  ‘iyshown ‘ayin (אישון עין) which means “little man of the eye”.  The thought is that this refers to a person seeing himself as a reflection in the eyes of another person.  

So, if we are asking God to consider us as his reflection, what does that mean?  Who remembers Genesis 1:26 where God says that he will make us in his own image?  Doesn’t that mean the same as God saying that he will make us as the apple of his eye?  When the psalmist asks God to consider him as the apple of his eye, it is almost as if he is trying to remind God that, hey, do you remember, you said that I was made in your image so protect me as if I were a little you.  What a great image of us being the little man or woman that God created to be just like him.  

God loves us so much that he created us to be just like him.  We are to reflect his presence.  This psalmist knew this well which is why he keeps referring back to what God has done in his life and how God has indeed protected him consistently and without fail.  I want you to remember today that you are the little man or woman of God’s eye.  The psalm ends again with that same reference. The author states that when I awake I will behold your likeness.  Let’s not go into an egotistical approach, but isn’t this just another way of saying that every morning we can look in the mirror and say: God, you have made me to face today.  God, you have made me for today.  God, you love me so much that you have allowed me to have another day.  When we look at our lives we ought to see the likeness of God in action.  

Is it too much to say that we ought to have the sense of worth and value that God has first ascribed to us when he made us?  I went to LCBC on this past Saturday with our confirmation class and the kids heard and remembered the message of pastor Ashcraft.  God loves you and values you.  Simple, nothing complicated.  God considers you a work of art.  We don’t see ourselves that way, but we ought to.  God sees us that way.  God made us to reflect his image and to be like him, that is how much he loves us.