1      Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.

  2     I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;

I have no good apart from you.”

  3     As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones,

in whom is all my delight.

  4     The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply;

their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out

or take their names on my lips.

  5     The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;

you hold my lot.

  6     The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;

indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

  7     I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;

in the night also my heart instructs me.

  8     I have set the Lord always before me;

because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

  9     Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;

my flesh also dwells secure.

10     For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,

or let your holy one see corruption.

11     You make known to me the path of life;

in your presence there is fullness of joy;

at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

This Psalm opens up with a simple prayer.  In God alone King David placed his trust.  He had rightfully reckoned that everything good in his life, and his fellow Israelites, was from God.  Starting with the slaying of Goliath and leading all the way through his life, God had preserved him. 

David was in a deep personal relationship with the one true God.  Surrounded by foreigners who sacrificed to other gods, David stated plainly that even casually acknowledging any other god was heinous. 

Just as with Christians today, the Lord was guiding him throughout his life.  David was biblically educated and knew his God-honoring heart was informing him when he meditated at night.  This was not worry, which the Christian is to avoid (Psalm 127), but the meditation on knowing who God is and what we are to Him.

Other than a very significant prophesy that the Messiah’s body would not decay upon death (v10), David summarizes the Psalm with the only possible outcome.  In God’s presence he has full joy.  Even beyond death he would forever experience the pleasure of being with our Lord. 

The Lord shows no partiality.  We too can experience this true joy.  Let every counsel come from God.  Meditate on His word.  Look to heaven, where our eternity awaits with the expectation of unimaginable joy.

God bless,

Ron