“The humble will see their God at work and be glad. Let all who seek God’s help be encouraged.” -Psalm 69:32 (NLT)

When we seek after God with all our hearts and all our minds, scripture says that we will find Him. David is writing this Psalm from an incredibly broken place in his life, and most of his time, in the beginning, is spent focusing on himself. It is only towards the end that he realizes he must humble himself and cast his eyes to God. He needed to change His perspective! Vs. 30 he says “I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify him with thanksgiving.” That is a marked shift away from his earlier words in vs. 2-3 “I sink in deep mire,where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me. I am weary with my crying out; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.“ Throughout the Psalms, David consistency models for us the importance of humble surrender to God, and its centrality when seeking Him.

Humility and Surrender are at the heart of this verse. When we can humbly surrender to Jesus, we get new eyes to see the work He is doing all around us. Once we can take our eyes off of our own circumstances and cast our eyes towards the Kingdom of Christ, the truth of this verse starts to take shape. We can find deep-rooted joy and encouragement by seeing God’s work being accomplished in the world around us. When we see his plan being carried out so faithfully, we can trust Him to aid us in our greatest times of need. David was desperately crying out in this passage for help and for relief. When he finally took his focus off of himself and placed it on God, things started to fall back into their proper place. His acknowledgment didn’t make his situation better all of a sudden, but it did provide him with the power he needed to keep pressing forward.

While in this vein, let’s take a moment to do some self-examination. Where are your life goals placed? Where are your thoughts roaming towards? Do you have desires of success and making a name for yourself? While there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to be successful in life and for having a bit of a reputation to your name, what is your ultimate end goal? Is it to make you famous, or is to make Jesus famous? Take a moment and honestly, evaluate these places in your heart (Psalm 139:23).

After doing some soul searching, seek to find yourself at the feet of Jesus in full surrender, ready to live His plan for your life anew. Sometimes our hearts can take small detours from the lighted path before us. We must be careful to have the attitude of David and allow God to search your heart and reveal all of those hidden pieces, you may not even be aware that are there.

You can be encouraged that God desires for you to find comfort in His power. Surrender to His plan. Allow yourself to fall humbly before Him and know there is beautiful simplicity in letting go of control. Would you prefer to steer your sails against His wind, or would you rather allow Him to fill your sails and propel you on to greater things?