“Be gracious to me, LORD…”
Psalm 9:13 (NASB)
I try to imagine the scene as the last gate is hung on its hinges. “It seemed like a dream, too good to be true…” (Psalm 126:1, MSG). No one on site that day had seen the city like this in their lifetime: walled, gated, whole.
Zion, 445 BC.
Walls of salvation.
Gates of praise.
(Isaiah 60:18)
No doubt Nehemiah’s heart would’ve been full to bursting! This is what “the gracious hand of God” (Nehemiah 2:18, NLT) had been on him to do. And, he knew the history. He knew the heights from which they’d fallen. 142 years earlier, when Babylon broke in and reduced the city to rubble, God’s chosen people were marched captive to an unholy city. Through gates that looked a lot like death. How far they’d come…
As Zion’s new gates swung freely on their polished mountings, Nehemiah stood in the doorway of an almost-forgotten dream. He stood in a gate of praise!
Psalm 9:13-14 shows us the power of “the gracious hand of God.” The contrast is striking! In verse 13, a white-knuckled psalmist clings to life, ready to be swallowed whole. Death on the doorstep. Then, in verse 14, we hear the psalmist’s vocal warm-up exercises, preparing for full-throated praise at the city gates. Rescued by hands of grace, getting ready to let everyone know about it.
What an occasion for praise:
the night-and-day difference of grace!
Charles Spurgeon put it like this:
“What a glorious lift! The gloomy portal has seemed as if it would open to imprison us, but, underneath us were the everlasting arms, and, therefore, we have been uplifted even to the gates of heaven.”
Charles Spurgeon (The Treasury of David)
I recognise the psalmist’s song because I’ve been lifted by the Spirit of Grace onto a new and living way (Hebrews 10:20). Rescued from the rattling rusty gates of death. Planted beneath well-oiled gates of life and praise. In Christ, I’m held by hands so gracious, so merciful, so loving, so kind. Like Nehemiah that day, my heart is full to bursting at this inexhaustible, incomprehensible grace between the gates!
“Be gracious to me, LORD…”
Today, as you pray these words, may your heart be full to bursting at the night-and-day difference of grace! In Christ, you are surrounded by walls of salvation, carried by the Spirit of grace to gates of praise. May you know the steady, gracious hands of the LORD on you, beneath you, around you. What a glorious lift, a dream come true!
Amen and thanksgiving for extravagant love 🙏🏼