ONLY God

Truly my soul finds rest in God;

   my salvation comes from him.

Truly he is my rock and my salvation;

   he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.

- Psalm 62:1-2

The first verse of Psalm 62 emphasizes that we must surrender and find rest in God, and God alone. The word “truly” is often translated as “alone” or “only.”

This psalm highlights this idea of “Only God.” Theologian James Montgomery Boice says, “It is hard to see this in the English text, because the Hebrew is almost untranslatable, but in the Hebrew text the word only or alone occurs five times in the first eight verses (in verses 1, 2, 4, 5, 6), and once in verse 9.”

This repetition is meant to make it clear to the reader: our soul is to find rest and fortress in ONLY Jesus. Like a parent repeating important instructions to a child, Psalm 62 highlights how important it is that our hearts only rest in God.

This deeper understanding of Psalm 62 hits the problem of sin head on. It is so easy for our “prone to wander” hearts to constantly seek other things. When life gets stressful or hard, we find rest in success, money, relationships, or distractions. We turn good things into idols and dabble in destruction when we don’t teach our hearts to ONLY seek God above all.

If we are to ONLY rest in God, if we are to seek Him first and foremost - we must remove the distractions and temptations that grab our attention before him. In a 21st century world, that list is miles long.

I don’t know what’s on your lists, but I know some things gotta go, and some things need boundaries.

If we want to only seek God; if we want Him to be our source of rest and relief; if we want Him to come FIRST, we must reorder our lives to reflect it, and we must train our hearts to obey that order.

This week, I challenge you to sit with yourself and Jesus for ten minutes and think about what's on your list of distractions and temptations. What gets in the way of God being your “ONLY” thing? Are there some things you need to get rid of? Some apps to delete, friendships to let go of, habits to quit? Are there some boundaries that need to get set? Conversations that need to be had, routines that need to be created?

When we give God our first, we find a new level of peace and rest that our worldly temptations can’t compare to. Remove some things. Set some boundaries.

And make Him your ONLY.

Cristina Schmitter

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