Forest Lake Talks

Text: Psalm 62:1-2

1 For God alone my soul waits in silence;
from him comes my salvation.
2 He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall never be shaken.

Devotional: If you heard yesterday's sermon from Ellen, you'll know she mentioned the inside of a beautiful tomato (sorry for the spoiler if you missed it). As we know, however, a beautiful tomato may not be beautiful on the inside if it's been attacked by worms!

Taking this beyond the garden, let's consider the following question:

"Forest Lake, what's on our inside?"

The Hebrew word for your "inner being" is "nefesh," a word that does not quite have a literal English translation. The best way to describe it is your "essence." "Nefesh" is used in the original Hebrew for verse 1 above, so see how this reads:

"Only in God is my being quiet. From God is my rescue."

And, if you want to take this one step further, you can argue that the Hebrew says, "Only toward God is my being quiet." Maybe that's what the psalmist wants us to say.

The psalmist is describing complete trust in God. As Ellen mentioned yesterday, we cannot consider our relationship with God to be a contract. Unfortunately, though, there are times when our essence/insides/nefesh get the best of us, causing us to overthink and overcontrol.

What if we decided to point our essence toward God this week? And if we choose to do so, does it change our relationship with God? Does it make our nefesh/essence/insides more secure? Does it make it more grounded in trust toward God?

Prayer: Holy God, may your Spirit finds way into our nefesh this week! And then may we gain the confidence, strength, and peace that comes with trusting you. Amen.