Read chapter in full: www.biblegateway.com/passage/?version=ESV&search=Psalms+081

Psalm 81 (ESV)

Oh, That My People Would Listen to Me

To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith. Of Asaph.

1 Sing aloud to God our strength;
shout for joy to the God of Jacob!
² Raise a song; sound the tambourine,
the sweet lyre with the harp.
³ Blow the trumpet at the new moon,
at the full moon, on our feast day.

⁴ For it is a statute for Israel,
a rule of the God of Jacob.
⁵ He made it a decree in Joseph
when he went out over the land of Egypt.
I hear a language I had not known:
⁶ “I relieved your shoulder of the burden;
your hands were freed from the basket.
⁷ In distress you called, and I delivered you;
I answered you in the secret place of thunder;
I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah
⁸ Hear, O my people, while I admonish you!
O Israel, if you would but listen to me!
⁹ There shall be no strange god among you;
you shall not bow down to a foreign god.
¹⁰ I am the Lord your God,
who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.

¹¹ “But my people did not listen to my voice;
Israel would not submit to me.
¹² So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts,
to follow their own counsels.
¹³ Oh, that my people would listen to me,
that Israel would walk in my ways!
¹⁴ I would soon subdue their enemies
and turn my hand against their foes.
¹⁵ Those who hate the Lord would cringe toward him,
and their fate would last forever.
¹⁶ But he would feed you with the finest of the wheat,
and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”

REFLECTION:

1. The psalmist had cried out to God for restoration. Yet, in this psalm, he explicitly recognized the fact that God is always willing to deliver and to bless. It was Israel’s own failure (their stubborn hearts, v12) to listen to the Lord and submit to Him that led to disaster. God, speaking through the psalmist, said, “If only My people would hear My voice and Israel would follow My direction! Then I would not hesitate to humble their enemies and defeat their opposition Myself.  (vv13-14, The Voice)”
2. We too can cry out to God when we are in distress. But we need to examine our lives and see if our own unwillingness to obey is keeping God from giving us the blessing we so desperately desire.
3. Has God ever lifted a burden from your shoulders? What was it? What happened? Are you carrying a burden now? Read verses 6-8 as God shouting at you, or whispering in your ears His love for you, and His desperate desire to carry off your burdens.

PRAYER:

Stay with God for a little longer.  Continue to converse with God and listen to what He wants to tell you.  Then write down any thought and/or prayer in your spiritual journal.

HYMN:

Psalm 81 – www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdgZQEiKKk4