Sunday, December 12, 2010
Today I'm in Psalm 22. This section is often used during the Church's Lenten season as there are several Christ prophecies in here. It is David's lement ot God, starting out "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" - Jesus' recorded words on the cross. David, of course, is writing this as HIS prayer to God - his conversation with him.
"In you our fathers put their trust;
they trusted and you delivered them
they cried to you and were saved;
in you they trusted and were not disappointed."
- Psalm 22: 4-5
"All who see me mock me;
they hurl insults, shaking their heads:
'He trusts in the Lord; let the Lord rescue him.
let him deliver him, since he delights in him."
- Psalm 22: 7-8
Here we see that David's ancestors had put their trust in God - or they HAD to put their trust in God and he did not let them down. then later David is in the same boat and it's difficult - his peers are asking why he is trusting in the Lord and they are mocking him for doing so. Of course we also know this from the life of Christ, that the same thing happened to him while on the cross.
The lesson for us today is that God is revealing himself to us in those moments. We don't always see it or understand it, but he's always at work in our lives. Sometimes that means getting OUR attention and/or the attention of others to remind us that he IS here for us and he WILL deliver us.
For me,I think this happens to remind me that God's still here. It's like things get rough and are difficult, just enough to remind me that I haven't prayed much lately - or that I have been reliant on myself. Many times in our lives we have things we can rely on to bring us through... we have money in the bank, we have relatives somewhere, we have someone who can help us... but then there are those times where our guy doesn't come through, or the money is gone, or our problems are too big for our usual methods of coping. We are stuck and quite literally don't know what to do. It's in those times where God is there waiting for us... or perhaps, like me, it's in those times that we finally break down and turn to him to work things out.
And he's there to work things out, to prove that he is trustworthy and to make us stronger for trusting in him.
At the end of this study, as I'm typing this up, it hit me that you know... we should be so thankful for those things we rely on to help us. Those things along the way that keep us from getting to our "last straw" are also the gifts of God - his blessings to us. We can thank him for getting us through at the bottom of the barrel, but we can be just as thankful, if not more so, for getting us through the some-what easy way as well.
"In you our fathers put their trust;
they trusted and you delivered them
they cried to you and were saved;
in you they trusted and were not disappointed."
- Psalm 22: 4-5
"All who see me mock me;
they hurl insults, shaking their heads:
'He trusts in the Lord; let the Lord rescue him.
let him deliver him, since he delights in him."
- Psalm 22: 7-8
Here we see that David's ancestors had put their trust in God - or they HAD to put their trust in God and he did not let them down. then later David is in the same boat and it's difficult - his peers are asking why he is trusting in the Lord and they are mocking him for doing so. Of course we also know this from the life of Christ, that the same thing happened to him while on the cross.
The lesson for us today is that God is revealing himself to us in those moments. We don't always see it or understand it, but he's always at work in our lives. Sometimes that means getting OUR attention and/or the attention of others to remind us that he IS here for us and he WILL deliver us.
For me,I think this happens to remind me that God's still here. It's like things get rough and are difficult, just enough to remind me that I haven't prayed much lately - or that I have been reliant on myself. Many times in our lives we have things we can rely on to bring us through... we have money in the bank, we have relatives somewhere, we have someone who can help us... but then there are those times where our guy doesn't come through, or the money is gone, or our problems are too big for our usual methods of coping. We are stuck and quite literally don't know what to do. It's in those times where God is there waiting for us... or perhaps, like me, it's in those times that we finally break down and turn to him to work things out.
And he's there to work things out, to prove that he is trustworthy and to make us stronger for trusting in him.
At the end of this study, as I'm typing this up, it hit me that you know... we should be so thankful for those things we rely on to help us. Those things along the way that keep us from getting to our "last straw" are also the gifts of God - his blessings to us. We can thank him for getting us through at the bottom of the barrel, but we can be just as thankful, if not more so, for getting us through the some-what easy way as well.
