Watching The Master's Hand

Psalms 123:1-2 (NIV)

1I lift up my eyes to you,

to you whose throne is in heaven.

2As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master,

as the eyes of a maid look to the hand of her mistress,

so our eyes look to the LORD our God,

till he shows us his mercy.

What did the psalmist mean when he said "I lift up my eyes to you, to you whose throne is in heaven"?  The general undertanding is that it refers to prayer, or to a gesture of trust upon God.  But to really understand what he was saying to the Lord we need to take it in the context of the next verse, for this describes what his heart was saying.

2As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master,

as the eyes of a maid look to the hand of her mistress,

so our eyes look to the LORD our God,

till he shows us his mercy.

We need to understand this in the context of ancient Master-servant relationships, something that we don't really practice today.  Servants and maids during those days were not employees or volunteers...they were pracitcally commodities.  Many were bought, others volunteered their servanthood to their masters.  But generally as servants they did not act on their own.  Everything they did was according to what their masters wanted.  Whatever the master commanded them, they were to do.

And what the servants usually looked at were the hand gestures of their masters.  With a wave of a hand, or with a specific signal, the servant knew if he was being called, or asked to do something.  All their movements were based on these hand signals.  And so a slave, or a maid, would be looking to the hand of their master or mistress, for them to know what they were to do.

This was what the psalmist was praying for.  As the eyes of a slave were continually focused on the hand of his master, waiting for the command, so was this psalmist waiting for the Lord to tell him what to do.

The next verses reveal to us what the psalmist was going through:

Psalms 123:3-4 (NIV)

3Have mercy on us, O LORD, have mercy on us,

for we have endured much contempt.

4We have endured much ridicule from the proud,

much contempt from the arrogant.

The psalmist was enduring much contempt and ridicule from proud people.  The Hebrew word for "contempt" means "to be despised...a laughingstock".  The word "ridicule" means to be mocked, made fun of.

In a situation like this it would have been natural for the psalmist to fight back, to retaliate or answer back at those who were treating him with contempt. But he didn't.  His eyes looked to his Master, and he was waiting for what his Master would command him to do.

Are we in a similar situation like this?  There are times when people will treat us with contempt, ridicule us or make fun of us.  Maybe it's in your office, or in your dealing with other people.  The natural tendency for us is to respond according to our emotion, or to simply retaliate.  When people are proud and arrogant, the natural response is for us to be proud and arrogant also.

Lift up your eyes to your King, your Master, and look to His hand.  Ask and wait for Him to tell you what to do.  Don’t follow your emotion, and don’t feed your pride.  You are a servant, a maidservant, and it is your Lord now who tells you how to live, what to do.

Generally, this should be the posture of the heart of a servant, or a maidservant…looking to the hand of their Master, and waiting for Him to tell us what to do.  In the New Testament this is called “walking by the Spirit”, always praying, discerning, what the Holy Spirit is prompting us to do, to act, in certain situations.

Of course it all depends on the foundation of our relationship with God - is He our Master?  Are we His servants?  Do we do things on our own volition or our own ways, or are we looking up to Him who sits on the throne?

Whether we are being ridiculed or mocked like the psalmist, or whatever situation we are facing, make sure that our eyes are on the hand of our Master, waiting upon Him before we act, or react.