Praying the Psalms with Augustine and Friends

Chapter 3: Psalms 39–59

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Psalm 40 with Augustine – Hoping in the Lord Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, who does not look to the proud, to those who turn aside to false gods (v. 4). Let the Lord your God be your hope. Hope for nothing else from the Lord your God; but let the Lord your God himself be your hope. Many people hope to obtain riches from God’s hands, and many earthly honors. Instead, seek after God himself. Indeed, despising everything else, make your way to him! Forget other things; remember him. Leave other things behind, and press forward to him. Surely he set you right, when you turned away from the right path; he guides you to your destination now that you are on the right path. Let him be your hope who guides you to your destination. But as for me, I am poor and needy (v. 17). I am not rich because I am not proud. And what would you do, O poor and needy man? Beg at God’s door; “Knock and the door will be opened to you” (Matt 7:7). Let him who made you care for you. He who cared for you before you existed, how will he fail to care for you, now that you are what he destined you to be? For now you are a believer, now you are walking in the way of righteousness . The members of Christ—the Body of Christ extended everywhere—are asking of God, as one single person, one single beggar! For he too was poor, who “though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9). He makes the truly poor ones rich, and makes the falsely rich ones poor. First there will come days of hardship, and of greater hardship. They will come even as the Scripture speaks, and as days advance, sufferings also increase. Let no one promise himself what the Gospel does not promise.