I will remember the deeds of the Lord
Every day we're reading or listening to part of the Bible together and sharing thoughts with you. Today it’s Bern Leckie:
What did I like about today’s passage?
Do you remember when plastic straws were the worst thing in the world? Sometimes things get overtaken by events, new problems loom larger than old ones and, like the writer of these Psalms, we can feel rejected forever, unable to be comforted even by God.
I love the way that the writer expresses this so honestly in Psalm 77. At the start, it doesn’t seem that he has simply forgotten God and then remembers his love. The pain runs deeper than that. When he thinks about God, he groans, recalling the anguish and frustration of Psalm 74 where God appeared so remote, he needed to be called back to defend himself against rising uproar and mockery.
That is some deep desperation. No believer thinks God is that vulnerable. But we can be, especially when immediate emergencies make us lose our sense of perspective about what is most important, reliable, trustworthy and powerful in the world. Are we a bit lost too?
If so, the decision the writer makes at the turning point in the middle of Psalm 77 could be our turning point too. He decides to remember more than feelings and frustrations, but to start counting actual stuff done. What can we credit to God? What have we seen? What do we believe others saw before us? When we push past the pain of the here and now and look for evidence of God’s power across the world and through history, does that change our perspective? Can we start to see ourselves the way God sees us?
What did it show me about Father God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit?
God knows that we feel isolated and powerless at times, but he works to connect us with himself, his heavenly powers and other believers across all times. God’s work can be seen in his big story as well as in countless stories of our own. God lets us struggle from time to time, but his Spirit can always help us to connect what we remember and believe about God’s love and power so that we can overcome our feelings of frustration and powerlessness.
What am I going to do differently as a result?
I remember a particularly depressing time as a teenager when I felt remote from God and struggled to remember good things from him. So, I decided to write down at least one per day, even if they were outweighed by bad things. I barely managed one for the first couple of days, but then two seemed right, then three or four, then a short list, then a longer list. After a couple of weeks, it felt too overwhelming to write them all down and I haven’t felt the need since. But when I do get stuck, for example, in working out how to praise God with words, this will be a good thing to remember and do again – God worked powerfully before!
Who am I going to share this with?
People I follow Jesus with and maybe people I might write songs with in the future.