This psalm is annotated as a wedding song. So, who is getting married? The famous author, C. S. Lewis, wrote that some of our psalms meant two different things to their hearers and psalm 45 is a example of this.

Before Jesus was born, the king in the psalm was the king of Israel or Judah and the queen was obviously, the woman he married.  For Christians, however, the king is Jesus and the queen: the church or the body of believers. As Christians, we will now follow what the psalm has to say.

We see Jesus as a man of grace (blessed by God) who lived and died for us. He entered a battle to win us for Himself and now sits on an eternal throne in heaven. Verse 10 tells us we are to forget our previous life when we come to Jesus just as the Jewish woman on her wedding day was taken by her husband away from her family to his family home. Then follows a description of how Jesus sees His bride, us, as beautiful beyond measure and wearing richly embroidered garments.

The psalm culminates with what could be described as a prophecy: that our children, as those of believers, will be more fruitful and blessed than our fathers and that we will be remembered as people who followed the Lord.

We can spend much time praying and pleading with the Father for our children who have gone astray and no longer follow the Way. It is right that we should constantly beseech our Father to bring them home. I am intrigued by the thought, however, that if we maintain our own close relationship with God (this is a wedding psalm after all), He will bless our children and give them positions of authority and trust. Our dedication on their behalf will ensure that we are remembered by younger generations as the people of faith we try to be. Our task, apart from praying for them, is to constantly praise and worship.

Is there a life of a child or young person you can sow something enduring into today? Our children at church always need us older folk to bring them encouragement through prayer or spending some time with them in their Sunday or weekday groups. We have several young people every year who spend their gap year serving in missionary contexts abroad. Is this something you could donate into? There are several Christian agencies who can arrange for child sponsorship so that a child may receive education and health provision.

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Lord, is there anything You are calling me to do to respond to Your word to me today?