Take the time today, to
recognize God’s tender mercies in your life!
Din't allow circumstances to make you lose sight of God.
Make sure you read the whole psalm
so you have the flow of the passage.
1 I will extol you,
O Lord, for you have drawn me up
and have not let my
foes rejoice over me.
2 O Lord my
God, I cried to you for help,
and you have healed
me.
3 O Lord, you
have brought up my soul from Sheol;
you restored me to life
from among those who go down to the pit.
I have always asked myself
why we are not more grateful. It certainly cannot be that we have no reason for
gratitude. It seems that during life’s pleasant situations, we are complacently
distracted from appreciation of God’s caring providence, and during difficult
ones, we become absorbed by desire for a reprieve. We might even focus more on
fear about the next calamity, than gratitude for God’s loving care through the
present trial. In other words, our conscious thankfulness to Him is often sadly
lacking!
But here, David gives his
attention to writing a song of praise to God, recognizing that even in his most
difficult of times, when he feared for his life, his God had been faithful.
David goes on to encourage
all the saints to rejoice in God’s provision.
4 Sing praises to
the Lord, O you his saints,
and give thanks to
his holy name.
5 For his anger is
but for a moment,
and his favor is for
a lifetime.
Weeping may tarry for the
night,
but joy comes with
the morning.
He reminds us that the
hard times, caused by our sin or by the trials of life, are only momentary. We
need not fear that they will never end. Sorrow and tears are, and will be, part
of our human lives, but we must never lose sight of the fact that God’s favor
is for a lifetime, and our joy in Him will return.
As we meditate on the corrective
purposes of God, we can be assured that joy will be restored in His time. David
remembers that in his arrogance, he acted as if the difficulties would never
come.
6 As for me, I said
in my prosperity,
“I shall never
be moved.”
7 By your favor,
O Lord,
you made my mountain
stand strong;
you hid your face;
I was dismayed.
When David was enjoying
peaceful times, he needed to be reminded that those were times of favor from
God. He had done nothing to deserve them; they were gifts of God’s grace. And when
hard times came, he was dismayed.
Doesn’t that look like a
familiar reaction, when thoughts like “Why is this happening to me?” or “What
did I do to deserve this?” go through our minds? But this psalm shows us David humble
return to God, for he immediately approaches Him, pleading for mercy.
8 To you,
O Lord, I cry,
and to the Lord I
plead for mercy:
9 “What profit is
there in my death,
if I go down to the pit?
Will the dust praise
you?
Will it tell of your
faithfulness?
10 Hear, O Lord,
and be merciful to me!
O Lord, be my
helper!”
David knows so well that
the Lord is his helper, and that the Lord will receive ultimate glory from all
His children.
11 You have turned
for me my mourning into dancing;
you have loosed my
sackcloth
and clothed me with
gladness,
12 that my glory
may sing your praise and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I
will give thanks to you forever!
David’s trials were real,
and his mourning profound, but it did not last forever. How quickly we forget
or overlook the purposes of God: to bring glory to Himself through every
situation.
So, knowing that God is in
sovereign control of our lives should always produce deep gratitude. How
wonderful it is, for us to know that the Creator of the universe is “our” God.
Take the time today, to
recognize God’s tender mercies in your life! Allow neither good nor difficult
circumstances to make you lose sight of God.
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