Believers in God suffer right along with those who don’t believe.  “It rains on the just and the unjust.” –Jesus (Matthew 5:45)  As believers, we sometimes faint in our trust and faith in God when our troubles come to a peak of despair, when we can’t see a way out.  But then, just as suddenly as the circumstances become seemingly unbearable physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually—God shows up!  The entire situation changes and believers see God at work in all His glory!  Jesus promised us life with him forever but he also said there would always be troubles in this world until we are with Him.  Jesus promised He would be with us through thick and thin here.  Jesus promised He was coming back again to claim His own to take us there. 

Knowing and believing this Truth helps us to rise and give Him glory each day.  Trusting that God knows what He is doing keeps us from losing our senses and helps us to keep calm, focused and carrying on no matter what is happening around us.  We know, through good times and bad times, God will show up and do what only God can do!  Praise God from whom all blessings flow!  Thank you, Jesus for saving us and for your Holy Spirit that helps us through this changing life while trusting in an unchanging God!

Worship and Wisdom, Psalms and Proverbs

Psalm 102, The Message

^1-2 God, listen! Listen to my prayer,
    listen to the pain in my cries.
Don’t turn your back on me
    just when I need you so desperately.
Pay attention! This is a cry for help!
    And hurry—this can’t wait!

^3-11 I’m wasting away to nothing,
    I’m burning up with fever.
I’m a ghost of my former self,
    half-consumed already by terminal illness.
My jaws ache from gritting my teeth;
    I’m nothing but skin and bones.
I’m like a buzzard in the desert,
    a crow perched on the rubble.
Insomniac, I twitter away,
    mournful as a sparrow in the gutter.
All day long my enemies taunt me,
    while others just curse.
They bring in meals—casseroles of ashes!
    I draw drink from a barrel of my tears.
And all because of your furious anger;
    you swept me up and threw me out.
There’s nothing left of me—
    a withered weed, swept clean from the path.

^12-17 Yet you, God, are sovereign still,
    always and ever sovereign.
You’ll get up from your throne and help Zion—
    it’s time for compassionate help.
Oh, how your servants love this city’s rubble
    and weep with compassion over its dust!
The godless nations will sit up and take notice
    —see your glory, worship your name—
When God rebuilds Zion,
    when he shows up in all his glory,
When he attends to the prayer of the wretched.
    He won’t dismiss their prayer.

^18-22 Write this down for the next generation
    so people not yet born will praise God:
“God looked out from his high holy place;
    from heaven he surveyed the earth.
He listened to the groans of the doomed,
    he opened the doors of their death cells.”
Write it so the story can be told in Zion,
    so God’s praise will be sung in Jerusalem’s streets
And wherever people gather together
    along with their rulers to worship him.

^23-28 God sovereignly brought me to my knees,
    he cut me down in my prime.
“Oh, don’t,” I prayed, “please don’t let me die.
    You have more years than you know what to do with!
You laid earth’s foundations a long time ago,
    and handcrafted the very heavens;
You’ll still be around when they’re long gone,
    threadbare and discarded like an old suit of clothes.
You’ll throw them away like a worn-out coat,
    but year after year you’re as good as new.
Your servants’ children will have a good place to live
    and their children will be at home with you.”

TRUTH:  This psalm is about God’s people then but it is also about Jesus coming back to earth once more, for the last time, to claim His own.  “The godless nations will sit up and take notice—see your glory, worship your name—When God rebuilds Zion, when he shows up in all his glory, when he attends to the prayer of the wretched. He won’t dismiss their prayer.”

“Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”  Philippians 2:9-11, NIV

YES!  And Amen!

As believers face and deal with the painful crises that come to us, if we are to overcome and glorify God, we must keep three assurances before us;

Circumstances will always change,

God’s Covenant does not change,

Know the unchanging character of God!

Jesus IS coming back, you know.  We just don’t know when.  So, be ready!

Proverb 29:18, The Message

WISDOM: “If people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves;
But when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed.”

Jesus, the One and Only Son of God.  Believe Him.  Listen to Him.  Follow Him.

In Jesus Name, Amen