“Lord, you have treated your servant well, just as you promised” (Psalm 119:65).
“Lord, I was just looking back at the things You have done for me the last few years, and I want to say, ‘Thank you. Good job, Lord.'”
Only a battle-scarred veteran can look back down the years and tell the Heavenly Father, “Well done, Sir!”
We are well acquainted with the Lord’s promise to say something similar to the faithful disciples who are reporting in and “weighing up ” at the end of the day. He says to them, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a few things; I will make you ruler over many” (Matthew 25:21,23).
Wonder how it would be if we said something similar to Him?
Maybe put a star by His name?
The only people who know that God treats His servants well “as He promised” are those who, first, know His promises and, secondly, over a lot of years of service have found Him to be true and good and trustworthy.
They have found Him faithful.
Toward the end of Psalm 92, David–or one of Israel’s other great songwriters–is speaking of godly old people. After promising “they will still bear fruit in old age,” he adds that “they will be full of sap and very green, to declare that the Lord is upright, He is my Rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.”
Bearing fruit in old age: They are fruitful.
Full of sap: They are youthful.
And very green: They are beautiful.
To declare that the Lord is upright: They are truthful.
Look more closely at this last promise: The godly veterans will have a story to tell, one that establishes and drives home points learned in the crucible of life. They will be able to tell the younger people that…
1) The Lord is upright. (What He is; His character.)
Something “upright” tilts neither one way or the other. It does not yield to the blowing winds. “With Him, there is no variation or shadow cast by turning” (James 1:17). He is the very definition of faithfulness.
You find God is upright when everything else in your world is askew, when as the saying goes, “everything not nailed down is coming loose.” Then you see the Lord is still solid.
The world revises its definition of right and wrong with every new generation arriving on the scene, looks like. But God does not change. (See Malachi 3:6.)
2) The Lord is my Rock. (What I’ve found Him to be; my experience.)
To people in that part of the world, a “rock” meant several things, among them a foundation and a shelter.
A foundation. No one who knew the least thing about home construction would build on an unstable foundation. Builders of that day and this prefer a stable ground, and preferably solid rock. Over and over throughout the Psalms, we read that “The Lord is my Rock.” (Psalm 18 contains David’s hymn praise from 2 Samuel 22 in which he constantly refers to the Lord in this way.)
“Everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn’t act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand,” said our Lord in Matthew 7:26. The wise man, one who “hears these words of mine and does them,” builds his house on the solid rock.
A shelter, a refuge. Massive rock overhangs were shelters from destructive winds and sudden storms. “Lead me to the rock that is higher than I,” said the Psalmist on one occasion. Again and again, the songwriter of Israel spoke of the Lord as his Refuge. David hid from Saul in the cliffs of En-Gedi, these towering rocks with their caves and overhangs.
3) There is no unrighteousness in Him. (What He is not; His integrity.)
Receiving the news of the impending destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham processed it all in his mind, then said, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” (Genesis 18:25). Indeed. But only one who has walked with Him in life’s valleys of death and darkness and emerged into the sunlight slopes knows that, while His ways are often foreign to us and His will not always visible, He can be trusted to do the right thing.
Who would not want to follow a Lord who is upright, a Rock, and without the kind of weaknesses we find in ourselves and dismiss because “we are human”?
Notice, please, that these are not just declarations of three great traits of our Lord. They are the content of our testimony. We are telling the world what we have learned about our Lord from a lifetime of serving Him.
He treat His servants well.
Knowing this, and having learned it, are not enough. We must tell it.
The oncoming generation wonders about this. We are the ones to tell them.
We tell them by sharing our stories.
We tell them by explaining our scars.
We tell them by listening to their questions, hearing their fears, and sensing their doubts, and then responding as they give us opportunity.
“….that the children to come might know them, the children who would be born, that they may arise and declare them to their children, that they may set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments” (Psalm 78:6-7).
In the early days of Focus on the Family, Dr. James Dobson enjoyed telling of the time his wife Shirley had left him in charge of their two-year-old son Ryan while she ran some errands. Dad James was working at his desk and only occasionally checking on the toddler.
At one point, he becomes aware of the quietness coming from Ryan’s room. He jumped up and went to investigate. The child was nowhere in the house. The back door was standing open, however.
Dobson ran outside in search of his son since construction workers were on the premises, and this was not a safe place for a small child. He found Ryan.
He had decided to climb into the back of a pickup truck that had left its tailgate down. However, he’d manage to get halfway up but was unable to get any further. With his little legs dangling, trying to find something to push himself up further, the child was saying, over and over, “Somebody help the child. Somebody help the child.”
That’s the mandate upon every servant of God. Let’s help the children by telling them about the wonderful Heavenly Father.