Scripture

And I said, “This is my fate; the Most High has turned his hand against me.”

~Psalm 77:10, NLT

Quote

The life of faith will include times of God’s apparent absence as well as His presence–both will happen.

~Allen P. Ross {Dallas Theological Seminary}

Many of the lament Psalms are V shaped. Psalm 77 is a good example: from verse 1-9, the Psalmist is going down. Verse ten in the bottom of the V with verses 11-20 going upward. Daniel Estes is the wrote the New American Commentary on Psalms 73-150 and I was threatening to put it back on the shelf. I love reading commentaries but not bad ones. He hit it out of the park on Psalm 77. You need to read this Psalm in the New Living or the Passion Bible if you really want to get a sense of what the Psalmist is feeling. He is lower than a snakes belly in a wagon rut. He is depressed and afraid that God has turned His back. Let me quote Ross is passing, “There is nothing wrong with pouring your heart out to the LORD in times of despair even if it includes doubts and fears.” We have all had low moments; times of doubt and fear. In Psalm 77, verse 10 is the lowest point of this Psalm and verse 11 is the bridge between fear and faith.

The change happened when the Psalmist remembered what the LORD had done in the past. What the LORD has done is the past becomes the basic of our faith and hope in the present. You see it is only in the past that we humans can clearly detect what God has done. We never understand what He is doing in the present. The fact that God is holy not only means He is morally unflawed; it also means He is set apart. He is transcendent. He operates on an infinite level which is far, far to high for us to grasp. As Isaiah said, “His ways are above our ways.” God is working, always working according to Jesus but we can see only a part of what He is doing and most of the time, we fail to detect what He is doing at all.

I will give you two great examples: one is Jacob {Genesis 42:36}, Jacob exclaimed, “You are robbing me of my children! Joseph is gone! Simeon is gone! And now you want to take Benjamin, too.Everything is going against me!” At that very moment, it did appear that everything was working against Jacob, but in reality Joseph was not dead and Simeon was not gone. God was at work through Joseph to save Jacobs entire family. The second one is even better: CALVARY.  Not one person at the cross new what God was doing, not even Mary or Peter. They thought it was the worst day in history. They felt horror, fear, despair and grief. Only Jesus understood what was happening. Now we look back and we see it clearly but in the present those around Jesus were in a fog.

I like Jonathan Cahn and I have nothing against David Jeremiah but they are into selling books and I am not. I telling the truth: they don’t know what God is doing. They are guessing. You and I may not understand what is happening around us at the moment but we can look back to calvary and see clearly that God is working in our behalf.

Extra

I do want to praise God from whom all blessing flow, He is good. I am delighted to spend time with Him alone this morning. I shared Psalm 77 with the congregation at Danville last night and it was a joy. I figured with Joe David away the crowd would be down but we had a good crowd.

Christy Clark is now residing at her mother’s on Couey Road in Florette. She has not had any good days lately. Pray for a good day.

I think everyone was thrilled with Dustin and Hannah Ruth Lorance yesterday. We will vote to call them next Sunday.

Have a great week and thanks for reading the blog.