By awesome deeds you answer us with deliverance, O God of our salvation; you are the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas.
⁌Ps 65:5⁍
We commit sin, God responds with forgiveness and election and a sense of belonging (see Ps 65:3-4). And here in v. 5 God answers us with deliverance. God is a God of wholeness. And just as v 2 promised us that God's election was not for one nation alone, here we are reminded that the hope of God's deliverance extends to the far corners of the earth.
The psalms, though inseparable from the spirituality of a particular people, are also universal in their scope. They lead my eye from Abraham and Jacob and David to people yet unborn, assuring me that God's mighty deeds didn't stop at the end of the Book of Malachi, but continued on from the Gospel according to Matthew, to the Revelation to John, through today, and on into the the indefinite future. They are not the concern of a tiny corner of the Middle East, but spread throughout the world on both land and sea—and, if we're to believe the Apostle Paul, out into the unknown universe (see Rom. 8:21-22).
God, forbid that I should take lightly your promise to the ends of the earth. Help me to realize the immensity of what you've made me a part of, that I may sing your deliverance both in this life and in the life to come; in Jesus' Name. Amen.
