Thursday, August 28, 2008

Day 4: Parched – Overwhelmed – Misjudged?

DAY 4: Take heart...
More thoughts on Ps42&43 (inspired by and taken from John Goldingay).

Sometimes children will misbehave just to get attention. It reveals something deep within us – we fear feeling ignored more than feeling uncomfortable. Bereaved people can often fear the very notion that they might one day no longer feel distraught – the grief itself is ‘cherished’ as giving one last tangiable sense of connection to the departed. We hate the thought that that might be lost as well.

The psalmist reels under the sense that God’s hand is against him – but yet the very fact that God is dealing with him at all (that is, He is not indifferent) gives a form of comfort. There is no doubt who is responsible for the situation: ‘your’ (42:7b); ‘your’ (42:7d). Nothing happens without God’s permission and will.

‘For even God’s hostility is a mark of his involvement…Even God’s rejection is an indication that he bothers. It provides a basis for conversation. It is one better than being ignored.’ *

So even our troubles are an indication that God is interested in us – our lives are significant to him – he is working on us. The psalmists often feel God is absent and they are shut off from him. But heaven’s apparent silence never extinguishes their prayers – it provokes them. How wise God is.

So we rail and we wrestle, we cry and we contend – we engage. Faith is never more real because the odds are never so great. But we can take courage because our very trials demonstrate that we have God’s attention – and because we know He is good we can, no matter how many times we go down fight back up, saying to ourselves: ‘Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God’ (42:5,11; 43:5).

*J Goldingay, Songs from a Strange Land' (IVP 1978), p36

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