Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
Psalm 90:14
that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Psalm 90 is a prayer of Moses in which he acknowledges God for who he is and complains that the Lord disciplines Israel. He pleads for the favor of God. In the middle of this prayer is a glistening jewel to be mined for our personal and familial wealth. It is the prayer request in verse fourteen, quoted above. I want to break down this powerful one-sentence prayer and open up some of the riches in this single sentence.
Satisfy us. This term, satisfy, can be taken one of two ways. In our contemporary culture, being satisfied carries a somewhat defeatist air. Rather than pursuing excellence, one is comfortable with mediocrity. It communicates a lack of motivation and drive. Just be satisfied with what you have, don’t desire more. This is not the meaning of this verse.
The other meaning of the word is to be sated, to have a sense of complete satisfaction. The term sated is generally used for appetite. I go to an excellent restaurant, and my hunger is sated; I am full and completely satisfied. The prayer request is for God to satisfy us with his steadfast love.
Us. The object of the prayer is plural, us, not me. Originally, this psalm was used for the corporate worship of Israel. “Us” referred to all of Israel. This is a prayer for us to pray for our families. We can include our extended relations as far as we want. At a minimum, I would suggest we include all of our immediate family and our church family. What a great thing to pray for all of our family to be sated with God’s steadfast love and the attendant joy and gladness. Make your “us” as big or small as you wish. Just be sure to make it a prayer for “us.”
In the morning. The phrase “in the morning” indicates a daily prayer. Every day I ask God to satisfy us. Let not a day go by without being sated with God’s steadfast love.
Steadfast love. This term, steadfast love, is one pregnant with meaning. It is not a term in common usage in present-day American culture. It is translated from what has become my favorite Hebrew word, HESED. It is variously translated as steadfast love, covenant love, lovingkindness, kindness, goodness, and mercy. In her “The Jesus Storybook Bible,” Sally Lloyd-Jones translates it as, “Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love.”
Rejoice and be glad. Who doesn’t want joy and gladness? The stated end of being satisfied with God’s steadfast love is joy and gladness. Most of us are too easily satisfied. We stop with temporal things thinking that they will somehow fill our needs. We should never be satisfied with anything less than God’s steadfast love. It is this steadfast love that causes us to rejoice and be glad. Temporal things can never produce joy and gladness all the days of our lives.
Consider this, every member of your family is sated with God’s steadfast love resulting in joy and gladness. What kind of gatherings would that create for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter when all the family gets together? Christmas gifts and Easter Bunnies can’t produce joy and gladness like this. It only comes to those sated with God’s steadfast love. And this Psalm teaches us to pray for this satisfaction.
All the days of our life. A non-Biblical proverb says, “All good things must come to an end.” It is a pessimistic view of life. Fortunately, for those who follow Jesus as Lord and Savior, the end gets better, not worse. In the end, which never actually ends, we live in the New Heaven and New Earth, and all there is is satisfaction with God’s steadfast love producing joy and gladness forever.
With the above commentary, let me paraphrase this prayer of Moses into my prayer for my family as a pattern for how we can all pray the reality of Psalm 90:14 as applied to our personal situation.
Father, I ask you to satisfy us, Karen and me, my children, my grandchildren, my community group, those with whom I have a discipling relationship, the covenant members of Bridgeway church, and all those associated with Bridgeway. Satisfy us with your never stopping, never giving up, unbreaking, always and forever covenant love so that we are filled with joy and gladness all the days of our lives, now and forever. Amen.
Now, you substitute in the appropriate relationships for your life; your spouse, your children, your local church, etc. Make it your prayer that is built on the solid foundation of this Biblically-inspired prayer.
