God Cares for Us Like He Cares for the Land
You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it. You drench its furrows and level its ridges; you soften it with showers and bless its crops. You crown the year with your bounty, and your carts overflow with abundance. The grasslands of the wilderness overflow; the hills are clothed with gladness. The meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are mantled with grain; they shout for joy and sing. Psalm 66:9-13 (New International Version, NIV)
This psalm speaks of God caring for the land. Mark 4 speaks of our hearts as ground, or land. We can see from this parallel, that God cares for us. He waters our hearts with His Word so that we are enriched in abundance. God has already provided whatever we need (Ephesians 1:3, II Peter 1:3). As we spend time in God’s Word, it saturates the ground of our hearts so it becomes pliable to receive His Word so that the Word grows and gives us the abundant life Jesus so promised (John 10:10)..
God’s streams are filled with water to provide grain. This speaks of the activity of Holy Spirit working in our lives and bringing us grain. The refers to the bread of God’s Word, divine relveation whereby we may see, know, and receive all God has prepared for the land, or our hearts. Verse 10 of this psalm in the New Living Translation says:
You drench the plowed ground with rain, melting the clods and leveling the ridges. You soften the earth with showers and bless its abundant crops. Psalm 65:10 (New Living translation, NLT)
As we praise God, this plows up the soil of our hearts. The Bible says Judah, which means Praise, shall plow. Praise prepares our hearts’ ground to receive the rain of God’s Holy Spirit by which the Spirit softens our hearts to produce. So, that which made us hard and unable to receive the seed of God’s Word is now able to produce an abundance of crops. Then, all we do is blessed because we are blessed by God.
The tone is set for the year. we can expect bounty. The dry season is over, and now we’re experiencing blessing and abundance and fruitfulness. We get more abundance. Because God cares for us, He releases His river (Psalm 46:4) and rain (Joel 2:21-27). This brings the care of God to us and the provision of God for us so we won’t lack. Instead, we get a flow and overflow of God’s goodness. We’re in the care of God and we sing and give Him praise.
