It's been a Psalm 42 week. In a nutshell: nothing is going the way I planned. Another round of resumes have been rejected, another round of applications have been fruitless, and I keep going day after day to Wawa, where it's never interesting, never rewarding, and rarely what you would call fun. I know, all you moms are saying, "Welcome to life!"
Okay. This week I tasted a bit of hope, and it was sweet! Praise the Lord? You betcha! Then it was gone, and work, which was bearable last week, is now painful drudgery in the light of what could have been. Praise the Lord? More like, why has He forgotten me? I can do holy martyr really well.
Then the Lord led me to Psalm 42, where the psalmist feels weary, discouraged, a bit hopeless, intimidated, and almost disbelieving. I can relate! The psalmist is weeping because his own emotions tell him that God has forgotten him, and his enemies are exulting that his God is nowhere to be found.
To counter this depression, the psalmist does what CJ Mahaney calls "preaching the Gospel to yourself." Twice in the psalm, and again in the next, he says this to himself:
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.
Now, I know, my work situation is not a drastic life or death situation. But it does have some importance to me. And this is how the Lord has comforted and rebuked my unbelief.
1. seek God (not a job!) earnestly and desperately, as though I am dying of thirst and He is the only water on the planet (Ps. 42:1-3)
2. remember His past goodness, deliverance, justice, and mercy (Ps. 42:4-8)
3. when I find my questions agreeing with the enemy's accusations, remember both the past and the future (I used to praise You; I will again praise You) (Ps. 42:4-5,9-11)
4. hope in God and praise Him! and repeat and repeat and repeat... (Ps. 42:5,11)
So it's been a Psalm 42 week. The Lord seemed to hide Himself, but only to bring me closer. May He ever use every circumstance in my life to do so!
Friday, September 04, 2009
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2 comments:
My dear Jenn, You know experientially what Paul meant when he wrote, "My grace is sufficient for thee."
You have borne much and are eager to do much. May I share these words from Amy Carmichael? ".... can we not, by His grace, be 'faithful in a very little' today? We know we can, for we have such words as 'My grace is sufficient for thee' to assure us that all we need for faithfulness will be given. So whatever our work is, even 'a very little' thing, it is all right. Our Master does not ask for something we cannot offer, but just for faithfulness."
I'm in the middle of the CJ Mahaney sermon The Troubled Soul based on that passage. Very timely and needful in my own life as well!
Jenna Sanders ( I hope you guys don't mind me leaving comments on your posts!)
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