Psalm 44 – Suffering Love

These sons of Korah must really be suffering. If the psalms they scribe are going to continue in the same vein, I’ll have nothing much to write about it myself.

Once again, the psalmist is questioning where God is in the midst of their suffering. Citing old tales of God’s goodness, wondering why God has now rejected and shamed them (v.9). The nations around them taunt them, deride them, simply making fun of them because the God of Israel that led them to victory against her enemies is now not evident, leaving Israel for free picking.

Now I can’t possibly know why God will allow such things to befall them even though Israel hasn’t done anything wrong.

²⁰ If we had forgotten the name of our God,
         Or stretched out our hands to a foreign god,
²¹ Would not God search this out?
         For He knows the secrets of the heart.
²² Yet for Your sake we are killed all day long;
         We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. (NKJV)

And right at the end, the Psalmist appeals to God’s unfailing love to save them.

²⁶ Rise up and help us;
       redeem us because of your unfailing love. (NIV)

The thing about love though is that one of its characteristic is long suffering (1 Cor 13:3-8). I do recognise I get the benefit of having the entire bible before me, whereas the Psalmist is still in the Old Testament, but (I speculate) maybe that’s what God is trying to develop in His children.

And with that I extrapolate that even for us, sometimes we also feel as if God isn’t there, withholding for us despite us not doing anything wrong. Maybe, just maybe God is developing the long suffering love to be patient and endure.

Filed under: Cogitations, God, Life, Psalm

Psalm 43 – A Guide

According to the footnotes in my bible, it says Psalm 42 and Psalm 43 are one Psalm in many Hebrew manuscripts. And reading through it you can see a similar theme flowing through it. Thus this should be read with Psalm 42 in mind as I continue on from it.

The theme that continues on from Psalm 42 is that of spiritual depression. The psalmist feels so far away from God, actually not just distant, but rejected.

² You are God my stronghold.
       Why have you rejected me?
       Why must I go about mourning,
       oppressed by the enemy? (NIV)

Despite knowing the truth that God is his strength, he still feels rejected. I think it’s very similar to our Christian life as well, especially if you know how Christianity works, the different truths and promises of God over your life. No matter how much you claim it or you know it, they still seem to be absent from your life, feeling rejected or cast off as the NKJV puts it.

What is needed is not the promises of God, but God Himself. His light and His truth to guide.

³ Send forth your light and your truth,
       let them guide me;
       let them bring me to your holy mountain,
       to the place where you dwell.

Guide you where? Back to His presence.

Last night, I heard something interesting about the curses of God. In the Hebrew language, when the bible talks about curses, it turns out not how I imagined it to be, and certainly the majority of Western thinking I believe. Before last night, my understanding of a curse was an active one, where God acted out, such as droughts and famine across the land.

Instead, a curse is simply the lack of God’s presence. That means, the mere fact that the land produces fruit is God’s blessing, but when God removes Himself from the picture, there are no fruits.

Or on a much more relevant example, how we are cursed because of man’s fall from God in the Garden of Eden. We are cursed from birth because we don’t have God in our life, He is removed from us. And the only way to overcome it is by inviting Him in, or turning on the metaphorical light in the metaphorical dark room that is our life without God.

That’s all we need, His light and truth to be our guide back to God. Overcoming our spiritual depression because He is my exceeding joy and delight (v.4; NKJV merged with NIV ).

Filed under: Cogitations, God, Life, Psalm

Psalm 42 – Mortal Agony

I’m really fortunate to be living in Australia. Where life is a lot freer, safe and generally quite peaceful. I’m free to believe in whatever I want, and the worse I can suffer for my faith is the social stigma attach to Christianity resulting in at the very worse not having any friends. That’s okay.

But when you become an exile like the psalmist here, running away from his oppressors, and only having tears as his food (v.3), you know you got the shit end of the stick.

¹⁰ My bones suffer mortal agony
       as my foes taunt me,
       saying to me all day long,
       "Where is your God?" (NIV)

That is some serious pain and persecution by my reckoning, that even the scathing sarcasm of his foes is as painful as the breaking of bones. And like I said, I’m grateful once again that I have never been through such mortal agony before in my life.

On the continuum that is pain, though I’ve never suffered such hardship, pain is still there. The question now is what do you do to deal with the pain.

As I’ve been going through the psalms, my hesitations with many of the depressing prose is slowly diminishing, as I recognise that with God it’s alright to express such feelings. And the one thing that remains constant through it all is that despite those adverse circumstances of mortal agony, God is always praised, and hope is in Him.

¹¹ Why are you downcast, O my soul?
       Why so disturbed within me?
       Put your hope in God,
       for I will yet praise him,
       my Savior and my God.

Filed under: Cogitations, God, Life, Psalm

Psalm 41 – Soul Healing

We as a human being are tripartite, that is we are comprised of three parts – body, soul, spirit. I’ve  been learning a lot about this recently from a book titled “The Spiritual Man” by Watchman Nee. It’s such an insightful book into man’s makeup as God designed, that I’m barely a tenth through it and I’ve learnt so much already.

But let’s not deviate too much since this post is about Psalms, and not a book review. So what was it from Psalm 41 that struck that train of thought?

⁴ I said, “LORD, be merciful to me;
         Heal my soul, for I have sinned against You.” (NKJV)

David’s cry for his soul to be healed.

Maybe it’s just me, but normally when people are sick in the church, usually the common prayers are to heal the body of that sickness, or sometimes it’s a forgiveness of sins and a restoration of the relationship between God and person.

Yes, though the latter somewhat relates to David’s soul healing cry, it’s not quite as specific, and the implications of a healed soul are greater. And this is where I deviate slightly again into what I’ve learnt from Watchman Nee, and will apply it to this.

The soul was birthed when man’s spirit merged with his body. This occurred when God breath life into the dust. Thus the soul is man’s link from the physical to the spiritual, standing between the spirit and the body acting as a medium, and binding the two together. “The spirit can subdue the body through the medium of the soul, so that it will obey God; likewise the body through the soul can draw the spirit into loving the world.” (pg 26)

And so David’s cry for his soul to be healed, drives the point home that he wants his only medium to access the spiritual to be restored. It was damaged when he sinned, allowing his body to lead, when instead what’s most important is following the spirit.

So for me, I’m not worried about my body falling sick. I trust that if I ever even do get sick, God’s promises of healing are clearly stated in the bible. Whether my body is healed or not is not the point, despite the imperfections that befall my physical body, it would pain me more to be severed from God from a damaged soul.

Thus to ask God to heal your soul, is to choose to give up your life to Him, relinquishing your control over who and what you are, simply because you’re now guided by the spirit.

Filed under: Cogitations, God, Life, Psalm

Psalm 40 – Praise Witness

I must apologise that I’ve been slacking off on my posting. Dropping my consistency game. But it’s a new week! And what better way to start it than reading through more Psalms and delving into His word!

Just something really simple today.

³ He has put a new song in my mouth—
         Praise to our God;
         Many will see it and fear,
         And will trust in the LORD. (NKJV)

Extremely simple no?

I got two reasons why this verse struck me.

Firstly, when David said a new song was put in his mouth, to bring Praise to God, it’s not that many will hear, instead it’s many will see.

This to me, tells me that singing new songs, praising God, isn’t so much about what the song sounds like that will turn people’s trust to God. Rather it’s the life of the person behind the mouth that will cause people to fear and trust God. That is extremely reassuring to me, simply because I’m reminded again that is not my own skill to create this new song as aurally pleasing as possible, but the life behind it, my life, that is what will be the witness.

And the second reason flows on from that, that yesterday I had some words ministered over me first at my awesome church called FGAP by Rod Christensen, which went on the line that I would bring about a fresh sound, a prophetic sound with words and music. Pretty powerful I must say. Then later in the evening I went to visit my friend’s church in the train station that ministers to the lost and forgotten, the homeless (awesome ministry just by the way), and they had a guest speaker from South Africa who then prayed for me as well after the service and confirmed pretty much word for word what Rod prophesised over me.

And so this verse is like icing on the cake of those two prophecies for me. Reminding me that it’s my life that is most important, as people will see me as a praise witness for God.

Filed under: Cogitations, God, Life, Psalm