DELIGHT IN GOD’S WILL (Psalm 40:1-9, HCSB)

Fred Spann

One of the most intriguing comments that my wife, Bettye,  and I heard as we came back for furloughs from the mission field was: “Are you really happy there? Do you truly like living in Brazil?” or “What a sacrifice to raise your four children in a foreign land!” It was sort of like saying: “You poor souls. God sent you to suffer in Brazil. I’m so sorry for you!” It truly shocked us! It sort of brought us to the realization that many Christians have the idea that a rigid, stern God wants his disciples to be mildly or tearfully unhappy where they serve. It appears that some presume that their duty as disciples is to do whatever God wants, whether they like it or not, and that the more unpleasant the task, the more dedicated they are. The impression often received is that God is only pleased with meek followers who revel in self-sacrifice. Some pitifully sigh: “I really don’t want to but I suppose I’ll have to devote my life to God.”1 Many seem to whine and lament that in offering themselves to the Lord they simply do not expect to be satisfied and/or happy.  

David’s Experience

Now each of us can easily identify with the initial part of the text because like David we have had a salvation experience. “I waited patiently for the Lord, and He turned to me and heard my cry for help. He brought me up from a desolate pit, out of the muddy clay; and set my feet on a rock, making my steps secure” (Psalm 40:1-2). David, a talented musician who became known as the “Sweet Singer of Israel,” had his life transformed through faith. As he grew up, he perceived that he was mired in clay—doomed to destruction, until he called out to God who had already inclined His ear to David’s appeal. Through God’s guidance, the young man was converted, and developed a solid, firm faith. What was the result? He already was a singer, but what did he then sing? Verse 3 declares: “He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord” (Psalm 40:3). Since becoming Christians each of us, as David, have had novel musical expressions; the old songs of the former life are actually insufficient to express our thanks—we continually learn “new songs of praise to our God.” Christians throughout the world, through congregational singing or musical performance, participate in communicating the gospel through music so that people hear our voices, understand our message. The result, “many will see” or observe the example of our lives—resulting in their coming to “fear” or reverently regard the Lord, as well as placing their trust in Him; they will take the vital step of putting their lives in God’s charge. David further adds in verse 9: “I proclaim righteousness in the great assembly; see, I do not keep my mouth closed—as You know, Lord” (Psalm 40:9). These verses form a patented testimony of the true Christian. It certifies the fact that Christianity is a singing religion, because we have an experience about which we feel impelled from within to sing.

Verse 5 continues by stating: “Lord my God, You have done many things—Your wonderful works and Your plans for us; none can compare with You. If I were to report and speak of them they are more than can be told” (Psalm 40:5). The countless blessings and wonders that God expresses toward us are not comparable to any other experience in life. In my trip circling the globe leading the Brazilian choir, we realized that the Christian faith is universal and the expression of that faith is known throughout the world in many dialects and languages.  

Delight in doing God’s Will

In verse 6 the Psalmist says that the Lord does not desire sacrifice and meal offering, nor does He require burnt offering and sin offering. But he adds, God has “opened his ears” to perceive what He does want. In other words, the Creator endowed man with faculties to be able to hear God’s voice; mankind possesses moral ethics and innate religion. The interpretation is that we can hear Him speak, for He gave us a moral conscience. The Lord Jesus reiterates the warning: “Anyone who has ears should listen!” (Matt 11:15).

The Psalmist admits that he is a man of faith in verse 7, indicating that his testimony is connected to his spiritual attitude delineated in verse 8: “Then I said, ‘See, I have come; it is written about me in the volume of the scroll. I delight to do Your will, my God; Your instruction resides within me” (Psalm 40:7-8). David exults at being able to discern and do what God wants; the psalmist has hidden God’s word in his heart. He had sinned horrendously but as he expressed in the Psalm 30:5: “Weeping may spend the night, but there is joy in the morning.” As he written, the psalmist is most happy to do God’s will. 

Happiness in a Foreign Land

Bettye and I were extremely happy in Brazil; we are grateful to God for having lived there; we relished rearing our children there; we felt completely satisfied, totally fulfilled living in Recife for 33 years. The reason is quite simple: giving credence to our Christian counselors, we knew that we should never move ahead into an important, destiny determining decision without a deep peace. In making that decision, we received the certainty that we were following God’s will for our lives. In Brazil, we felt graciously welcomed and wanted; we were at peace with ourselves and made many faithful friends; we actually received more than we gave. We knew that God had led us there; we are certain that we chose exactly the place and the work that He had predetermined we should have chosen. With regards to the Christian, no man has absolute free will. To be satisfied in the Christian life, there comes a time when the human will must yield allegiance to a force greater than himself. However, for those honestly seeking and finding it, doing God’s will is never hard. The only thing that is difficult is not doing His will. We realized early that true happiness is working in the center of God’s will; we were most delighted to do His will.  

Choices Had To Be Made

Of course we had to make many decisions before deciding that it was His desire for us to make our abode there. We arrived at a crossroad and made a choice. We didn’t follow Yogi Berra’s much cited malapropism, which seems an inadvertent text for our times: “When you come to the fork in the road, take it.”2 Rather, we had to choose. God instructed us separately as we chose Brazil over Mexico, which also had requested a music missionary. Interestingly, without any serious conversation, but with some knowledge of the requests from the field, the desires of the Seminaries and the needs which were offered to us, Bettye and I both decided that the North Brazil Seminary in Recife was the place we should go. The choice was simple, as we think back, because having been in RAs and GAs it was as if the Lord had prepared us for this step during all our lives.

We recognized that everything that had happened in our lives to that moment was part of God’s determined will for us. It happened because He determined it to be so. The future would be hidden from us until it happened; but that didn’t really matter. We did not hesitate, nor did the Foreign Mission Board now International Mission Board) delay. Soon, we were on the ship Del Norte for the 17-day journey. It was within the sovereign will of God for us to make that trip to Brazil. But on board the ship, as well as in Brazil, we were free to participate in activities–eat, sleep, read, swim, lounge, talk with others, teach young people, etc. His detailed, perfected will was for us to serve Him at our destination, as well as in traveling to that destination. And the first shoreline we saw was the Pau Amarelo beach where the last work we started still stands—the Forte Baptist Church. For the obedient, God’s will is so natural, so certain. We do not know all that God has intended for us to do in our lives, but we have the good hope and firm assurance of a future well-being. Bettye and I began together with altruistic motives and eager enthusiasm. We felt, as Paul before Agrippa, that we were “not disobedient to the heavenly vision” (Acts 26:19).  

United with God’s Purposes

As one finds the Divine will, he will discover that his natural inclinations and choices will coincide with God’s. The child of God is not conscious of the will of God because he is the will of God. Only when there is the slightest deviation from the will of God, will one begin to ask—What is Thy will? Stubbornness, doubts, or hesitancy create a barrier to enlightenment and blocks the flow of the process of “working out our salvation.” We should use the “dynamite” of obedience to the Holy Spirit to break any obstacle so that we might receive and continue to possess the “joy of our salvation”3, as Christ had. (See Heb. 12:2) As we mature as Christians, we should be so united as “one” with God and His purposes, that there will be no need to ask continually for guidance; it is to be hoped and expected that what we do “naturally” is only part of victorious Christian living.

As a young family arriving in Brazil, we knew nothing of the Portuguese language, very little about the people, the customs or mores. We remained conscious of our ignorance which proved to be a great step toward knowledge. We were unaware of those we would lead to the Lord or the students we would influence and teach and train for service. Such knowledge of the future is not necessary to be in the center of God’s will; God is certainly competent to know those things. Bettye and I realized that we had had a wonderful experience in the past when He revealed His will to us in general terms; and there in Brazil we became aware that our past was only preparation for the future. We tried not to question what was happening, but being neophytes in the Brazilian culture, we accepted our humbled situation, acting as a child unquestioningly obeys adults. As our work began, we were able to initiate some activities with music in a local church, do some recording, prepare some quartets, etc. We learned that the Christian life planted in fertile soil is like a grain of wheat that “falls into the ground and dies”, yet it will spring up and change the entire landscape. (See John 12:24) It was the beginning of what seems to have been a fruitful ministry. 

Failure Can Be Positive

We also perceived that failure can be positive. Jason Rasky, cofounder of Failure Magazine says: “When you’re successful you don’t appreciate all the magic that went into that success as much as when you’ve gone through failure. When you try something and it doesn’t work, you have a tendency to spend time reflecting.”4 We perceived that God guides. While learning the language and attempting to communicate, we made hundreds of mistakes. We had multiple funny, perplexing, unsettling experiences, and often had to laugh at ourselves; painfully we learned from each episode. It became necessary to often pause and reflect on the entire effort to avoid discouragement.            

God’s Will in the Details

We apprehended the fact that God’s will is more often discovered in the details. The Lord became so dear to us, not so much because of the enormous blessings, but in the tiny things; through them He revealed to us how amazingly intimate He is with us; He knew every minute detail of our individual lives. He helped us with pronunciation, with strange word meanings, with correct phrasing, with the musical flow of the language. I remember vividly the first night I dreamt in Portuguese without it being “a terrible nightmare!” God accompanies each moment of each minute and hour of the maturing Christian. If one follows God’s will, nothing happens in life unless His will is behind it.            

Not Overly Concerned with the Final Outcome

There was one other very important thing we discovered. As we were happy doing God’s will, we began to see that we could live day-by-day, phrase-by-phrase, mistake-by-mistake without being overly concerned about the final aim or result of our service. Mortal Christians are simply too nearsighted to see the target at which Our Lord is aiming through their lives.5 The longer we stayed and the closer we walked with Christ, the more we learned that the Lord does not take time to explain the reasons why things happen to us. We must trust him through our lives without expecting Him to pamper us with explanations.

We learned four simple principles to keep in mind regarding God’s leading:6 First, God’s preferred method is surprise. Being young and adventurous, we yearned for the unexpected to happen and it frequently did. I learned a lot of the common vocabulary of that foreign language just sitting by Brazilians on long bus trips. Being rather introverted by nature, it was a blessing to have to converse, however incorrectly. I often felt sorry for the friend beside me, though. Second, His surprises require flexibility and adaptability. We learned to live as a minority, to adjust our living habits to theirs, to accept their non-threatening mores, and to adapt to the peculiarities of their customs. Acquiring a taste for tropical fruits and appreciating beautiful flowering trees was easier than adapting to frantic, frenetic motorists, and courageous, but life-threatening pedestrians. Third, behind God’s surprises are purposes of which we are not aware. Rather than being sorry for ourselves or being frustrated, we prayed, “Lord, give us some insight here. Help me to understand why the lights went out when I was teaching in Portuguese while depending totally on a written script.” (The class began singing choruses.) Instead of becoming embittered, angered, or disillusioned we asked God, “What can I learn from the unexpected?” We decided to prepare as best we could, but also to “go with the flow” as Brazilians so often do in their communication and thinking. Fourth, when God surprises us, He supplies sufficient grace to handle the unexpected. We discovered that the more we leaned on Him, the more we realized that He supplied what we needed to endure whatever His will encompassed for us. Most of all, we learned how to turn His surprises into opportunities to depend more fully on Him. It was not easy, but it worked, so it became a necessity. As Helen Keller wrote in her journal, we recognized that “character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”7

Also, we began to understand much more fully, among many other things, that God truly loves us; He lovingly took care of us. But we also recognized that He did not love us because we were valuable; we became of value to Him and the kingdom because He [constantly] loved us.8 

Pillars for a Good Life

A Christian medical doctor, Richard Clark Cabot, prescribed the disciplines or principles necessary to establish an abundant, good life. He says: “Every human being…needs the blessing of God through these four gifts—work, play, love [and] worship. With these any life is happy despite sorrow and pain, successful despite bitter failure.” And he goes on to summarize: “The harder we work and play the more intensely we devote ourselves to whomever and whatever we love, the more pressing is our need for reorienting, recommitting, refreshing ourselves in an appeal to God.”

God called us to be delightfully joyful, greatly gratified, totally satisfied as we served following His will. May each of us build our vocations through the disciplines of honest work, authentic play, sincere love, and regular renewal of our relationship with God. Then we can truly say with David: “I delight to do Your will, my God” (Psalm 40: 8).

ENDNOTES

1 Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest. (Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House Publishers, 1992), August 25.

2 Quoted by Peter J. Gomes, The Good Life. (San Francisco: Harper, 2003), 141.

3 Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, June 6.

4 Jason Rasky, quoted by Peter J. Gomes, The Good Life, 73

5 Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, August 3.

6 Charles R. Swindoll, The Mystery of God’s Will: What Does He Want For Me? (Nashville: Word Publishing, 1999), 180

7 Helen Keller’s Journal, quoted by Charles R. Swindoll, The Mystery of God’s Will: What Does He Want for Me? 155.

8 Fulton J. Sheen, quoted by Peter J. Gomes, The Good Life, 302

9 Richard Clark Cabot, What Men Live By: Work, Play, Love, Worship. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1914), xix.

Fred Spann is a retired music missionary from Brazil, the International Mission Board, now living in Colt, Arkansas, and serving as Minister of Music, First Baptist Church, Parkin, Arkansas.

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