A SAFE DEPOSIT

Psalm 31
A SAFE DEPOSIT
You are my refuge. Into your hands I commit my spirit.... (vv.4,5)

As darkness cast a shroud over the land, and as Jesus felt life ebbing from his body, he cried out in a loud voice, "Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit." Thus the psalmist's prayer became immortalised as the prayer of Jesus uttered with his last breath on the cross (Luke 23:46).

When God created man, he breathed into Adam the "spirit" (in Hebrew, meaning also "breath"). Thus while man's body came from the dust of the earth, his spirit came from the LORD God (Gen 2:7). From ages past, such has been the distinction between the part of man that dies, and the part of man that lives on. As one sage describes it, "...The dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it" (Eccl 12:7).

It is right that what belongs to God should be returned to Him. But we do not need to wait till the prospect of death to do it. Jesus had always placed his life in the Father's hand; his final prayer only marked the climax of a life of total submission. So it should be with us.

We have no one better than the LORD with whom to deposit our spirit and commit our eternal destiny. Man may kill the body, but God delivers the soul (Matt 10:28). Old age or cancer cells may wreck the body, but our spirit is safe in God's hand.

During the Japanese occupation of Singapore, people withdrew their life's savings from banks to hide them in mattresses or bury them in the ground. Even then, many lost what they had. With the uncertainty and brevity of life, we must entrust our most precious possession to the most dependable deposit box, God's hands.

Our most valuable possession needs the safest keeping place.