Psalm 77
Psalm 77
is a psalm of Asaph, and it is likely a psalm about a time when he was troubled
and could find no peace. I have to
confess that I have been in such a place.
In spite of my faith in God and in spite of my confession that there is
no salvation except through Him, that doesn’t mean I can perfectly let God be
in control. Sometimes it is difficult to
see God’s plan – even if we fully believe that there is one. Sometimes it is difficult to cast all of our
cares upon Him even when we know it is the right thing to do.
In those times,
it will likely be helpful to do what Asaph does here. Asaph stops thinking about his current
situation and begins thinking about the past.
He thinks about a story that he has heard that is similar to his current
situation. Then he looks for God in that
story.
In this
particular example, the story that Asaph finds comfort in is the Exodus story
out of Egypt. The freedom of the Hebrew
people was through the water – a path that nobody could see. The salvation of the Hebrew people was on a
course that no single person would have ever guessed, because no person was
able to grasp what God was doing.
When Asaph
looked back to the story of the Exodus, he saw God clearly in the water. He saw God in the thunder and lightning. He saw God in the parting of the waves. Although he was struggling to see God now in
his current situation, he could see God clearly in the past and it brought him
comfort.
This
brings us full circle. When we look to
the past, we can see God at work because His work is displayed and we know the
end result. When we look to the present
we cannot always see God as clearly because his hand is hidden in the
future. This is the power of knowing the
past. When we know the past, we can
easily identify with the power and faithfulness of God. If we can see God at work in the past, then
we will be able to see the present and the future more confidently. It works for Asaph. It can work for us, too.
Psalm 78
Psalm 78
is another psalm that makes the same point as Psalm 77. We have a lot we can learn from history. However, this psalm is pointed in a slightly
different direction. Psalm 77 spoke
about looking to the past to gain faith and confidence. Psalm 78 speaks to looking to the past to
learn from them and not make the same mistakes.
I think both are incredibly true lessons.
If we look
at a few of the examples – and it’s a long enough psalm that we cannot look at
them all – what we can see is that in spite of God’s action, people don’t pay
attention. God opened heaven and gave
the Hebrew people manna in the dessert. For the record, I love the imagery of God
giving them the food of the angels. I’ve
never thought about it that way. But the
really sad part about this is that the people became ungrateful for the
manna. They had the opportunity to
experience something that none of us will likely ever experience and they got
tired of it.
Another
example is when Moses brought water out of the rock. The psalmist uses that imagery combined with
the imagery of God’s bringing of quail and paints another great expression that
I love: God set a table in the dessert.
Quite literally, God had done so.
God had given them an abundance of meat, bread, and water in the dessert
and the people still rebelled.
What is it
that got their attention? God’s
wrath. When God’s wrath came upon them –
and there are many times that this happened – the repented. But they weren’t genuinely repenting. They didn’t really want to follow God. They simply wanted to escape God’s
wrath. Their hearts didn’t really turn
to God, they simply turned to God to make their life better. So when God’s wrath left them, they rebelled
again. They ended up proving that their
tongues were lying when they declared God’s praise. They weren’t in it for God; they were in it
for themselves.
Time and
time again the people rebelled. Time and
time again God showered them with grace and they didn’t respond. Time and time again it was only God’s wrath
that evoked any kind of response. But
the responses evoked by wrath were never genuine. We can and should learn this lesson. We need to learn to love God and genuinely
love His ways and stop loving God because we are afraid of His wrath. Love based of fear is never really love as we
see demonstrated again and again in this psalm.
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