There is encouragement hiding in your history
As I sat hanging out with Jesus one morning I was digging into the psalms when I landed on psalm 77. Let’s take a look at verses 1-10;
“I cry out to God; yes, I shout. Oh that God would listen to me! When I was in deep trouble, I searched for the Lord, all night long I prayed, with hands lifted towards heaven, but my soul was not comforted. I think of God, and I moan, overwhelmed with longing for his help. You don’t let me sleep. I am too distressed even to pray. I think of the good old days, long since ended, when my nights were filled with joyful songs. I search my soul and ponder the difference now. Has the Lord rejected me forever? Will he never again be kind to me? Is his unfailing love gone forever? Have his promises permanently failed? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he slammed the door on his compassion? And I said, “this is my fate; the most high has turned his hand against me”
Let’s pause here for a moment. Here we have Asaph in a pretty bad place. He is basically feeling let down and abandoned by God. He’s in the thick of the trial, distressed and overwhelmed. He can’t see a way out and is about to accept that God’s not coming through with his promise and this is his lot in life. I don’t know about anyone else but I’ve definitely had moments where I’ve found myself in Asaph’s shoes! You have all these words and promises spoken over you but right now they seem impossible. And the danger is that we focus so much on these promises not coming to pass that we dig ourselves into this pit until we begin to accept God’s not coming through with these promises and we begin to give up. We let the world give us a more attainable promise and destiny.
Thankfully this isn’t where psalm 77 ends. Asaph is about to reveal to us the secret to getting out of this hole of pity. In verses 11 and 12 we see an entire switch of his focus ...
“But then I recall all you have done, O Lord; I remember your wonderful deeds of long ago. They are constantly in my thoughts. I cannot stop thinking about your mighty works”
The psalm then goes on to acknowledge and declare the amazing works and ways of God. Asaph has allowed God to totally switch his mindset. The way out of the pit is to take your focus off all that you feel God has not done and place it onto GOD and all that he HAS done! There is encouragement hiding in your history! There are many things you have in your life now that were once a prayer and promise that probably seemed impossible at one point … but He came through!
So let’s take our thoughts captive, put them where they ought to be and get ourselves out of that pit and expectantly wait for our faithful father to come through again!
Now let’s take this a step further. Let us not forget that the psalms are the worship songs of their time. Yes they were really singing lyrics such as “this is my fate; the most high has turned his hand against me”. Let’s allow our worship to be just as real as this! When I first started worshipping and writing I felt like God said to me “Don’t hide how you are feeling from me. In those honest and open moments together I am able to invade your place of vulnerability and refocus you”.
The bible shows us how worship should be. Their worship songs present the full picture. They aren’t just these pretty and perfect songs that keep the church elders happy! They are raw and vulnerable and honest. They are singing out their reality; the good, the bad and the ugly. And just look at how God invaded this moment of vulnerability. What would happen if we brought our honest and vulnerable moments into our worship and song writing. I bet God would sing us out of our pits way quicker than we can counsel each other out of them!