We often walk into church feeling as though we should polish up our pain and act like everything is under control. Psalm 10 gives us a different perspective, making room for the days when evil seems to prosper, God feels distant, and honest faith sounds more broken than triumphant.
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Converted Sermon Transcript
There is a lot of country music out there, isn’t there? And it’s kind of interesting to think about. It’s one of the most popular genres. It’s been one of the most popular genres for a very, very long time. Others come and go, styles come in and out of favor, but country music has a certain enduring quality to it.
I was thinking about that this week, and something that’s striking to me about country music is it does what we often don’t give ourselves permission to do. It comes broken oftentimes. There’s a permission in it to come and just be raw and honest that has appealed from generation to generation. And if you think about it, people often joke about that in country songs that’s predictable, but I think the reason it’s so appealing is because we all feel it.
We live in a world where oftentimes people want us to look like everything is going well and act like everything’s going well and everything’s under control. We come into the setting of the church and we’re supposed to act that way, right? Because, well, God’s in control. So if God’s in control, then we should be happy and joyful, right?
But God wants us to actually feel free to come to him with the country music of our lives, that we don’t have to come in and polish it all up and have everything great when we come in before our God, that we can come before him. We can pray to him. We can sing to him and be broken.
How do we know that that’s what God wants for us? Well, because of the Psalms. We’re going to be starting a new series in Psalm 10 this week. And as we begin that series, one of the remarkable things I think we need to see in the psalms is that God gave these songs, this authorized book of songs or prayers that’s right in scripture, that often comes with things that we get uncomfortable to put into our own praise and worship. Because we feel like it’s not happy enough, that it doesn’t resolve quickly enough.
The song we did just before the sermon, “Even When It Hurts.” People have wrestled with that song for a few different reasons, but one of them is just that it sounds so broken, right? And sometimes they’re like, well, should we be doing that that much in church?
Sometimes when we come and we pray to God we feel like we should be rebuking ourselves even as we pray. Like, well, I need to act like I really believe. And we should really believe. But it’s okay to come with that country music pain, to come raw before God. And say, I know you have it all under control, but it sure don’t show.
That’s where we’re going right now because we’re going from Psalm 9 that we looked at this spring on steadfast where God is triumphant and defends his people to Psalm 10, which is closely related and says, where are you? I don’t think that’s incidental. I don’t think that was mistaken. I believe God wanted us to have these two side by side. So that we can understand, yes, we should praise him. And yes, we should celebrate that he has everything under control, but it’s also okay to come and say, God, I don’t understand. And we’re not waiting for God to strike us down because we say that.
So wherever our raw parts are today, wherever our pain is today, let’s pray that as we come to this text as we read Psalm 10, that God would give us the sense that he says very clearly in his word, it’s okay to bring that, that whatever it is that’s inside of us, we can bring that before him. And he’ll walk there with us. Will you pray with me, please?
Father, we do try to hold on to the things, we try to cover up the things that aren’t quite right, to polish things up. But Lord, You’re a God who understands that things aren’t always polished. Things aren’t always clear. Sometimes it does seem like we confront the brokenness of the world in such a huge and gaping way. Don’t know how to handle it. Sometimes it’s something that maybe isn’t huge and gaping at any one point, but it just runs as a continuing thread and it just comes back and the ache returns. Lord, as we look at the psalm, this song that you’ve given to us, help us understand what you’re telling us in it that you are the God who understands and is with us. We pray in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
Let’s go ahead and jump right in. We’ll go to verse one. Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
If we go a little further, it says in arrogance, the wicked hotly pursue the poor. Let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised. For the wicked boast of the desires of his soul and the one greedy for gain curses and renounces the Lord. Jumping to verse seven. That same wicked one. His mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression under his tongue are mischief and iniquity. He sits in ambush in the villages. In hiding places, he murders the innocent. His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless. He lurks in ambush like a lion in his thicket. He lurks that he may seize the poor. He seizes the poor when he draws him into his net, the helpless are crushed, sink down and fall by his might.
Can you imagine? You walk in here next Sunday and we sang that. Hi, welcome to Little Hills. We’re so glad to have you here today. But in reality, I think that actually says something about what we’ve gotten wrong about our God, that we feel like that’s wrong. Because God gave us this.
And there’s a hurting world out there that is trying to figure out how to make sense of things. And I think a lot of times they see those of us who are Christians. And if we’re actually presenting our faith reasonably well, they see that, well, it looks like they have everything together. Maybe someday if I have everything together, I too can be one of those people, but right now I don’t. And they wouldn’t know what to do with someone like me because I’m hurting. I’m confused. I’ve tried to pull my life together and it hasn’t come together. I’ve tried to have a successful career and I’m applying for jobs. I’ve tried to be a pillar of my community and everyone just laughs at me. Every time I get one thing fixed, another thing breaks, I can never get ahead.
And God says, I understand. We need a balance, right? We can get into a dangerous place where we only think about how everything’s broken, then we can just become depressed. That’s why we have Psalm 9. Psalm 9 says, when things are bad, when people, when forces oppose God, guess what? God is so powerful, he triumphs over them. But Psalm 10 says that God understands our questions.
Psalm 9 says, God has defeated evil, but our daily experience doesn’t seem to always correspond with that. Even in the way the language shows up between the two psalms, it’s really quite striking, because Psalm 9, for example. If we look there, notice what it says. The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed. A stronghold in times of trouble. But what does Psalm 10 say? Lord, when there’s trouble, where are you?
And it’s not that the psalmist got amnesia between psalms and forgot. These two are closely related. This one doesn’t say who wrote it, but the previous Psalm was a Psalm of David. There’s good reason to think that Psalm 10 is as well. And so it’s not as if David had won too many battles between, and he forgot what he wrote in Psalm 9 or he changed his mind. He’s acknowledging two sides of the coin that, yes, God is the one who’s triumphant. Yes, he is the one who’s ultimately victorious, but, in the moment, the moment doesn’t always feel that way. It’s okay. To say so. It’s okay to say when God doesn’t feel like a refuge. And when it doesn’t feel that way. We don’t have to say, what happened? You know, why?
Psalm 10 provides a realistic picture of what our daily experience often is like. We see evil over and over and over again flaunt God. How often do we see people outright mock God? And then they’re going about their life seemingly more smoothly than things are going for us. And we say, why? Sometimes those who do evil actually torment us. And they direct their evil at us and we say, why? Then we feel like, well, okay, now I need to get back to being a faithful believer so I’m going to plaster over that, but God says, you don’t need to plaster over it. You can actually bring that to me.
God’s saying here, I actually understand. In fact, I’m not going to even make you say it. I’m going to say it for you. Gonna be right here in the Psalms. So sometimes, some days we come and Psalm 9 speaks a bit more to our souls because what we really need is to be lifted up and be reminded that God is triumphant but sometimes we need Psalm 10 that says it doesn’t feel like triumph today. And God and his word are not surprised by that.
We can say, why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? Earlier this year, I wrote one of our local politicians about an issue that was concerning me. And I thought I wrote a pretty nice letter. I spent a good long time on this letter. I polished it. I tried to think about, well, how do I say this in a way that would appeal to a politician to read that he’d actually want to pay attention to it. So I framed it and talked about being one of his constituents and how much I appreciate his service to our government, and then went on and discussed something that I was concerned about, but I wanted to be appreciative as I was doing it. I spent a lot of time on this letter.
And I thought, yeah, I probably won’t hear anything. Well, I did hear something. Got a letter back. That’s pretty neat, isn’t it? Wow. Okay, I’m impressed. My local politician actually read my letter and took time to write a letter back. This is exciting. And so I open up the letter, I start reading it. And it thanks me for writing in and then goes over several of his accomplishments including one that directly contradicts the thing I said I was concerned about saying that he’s so proud that he’d done the thing I was concerned about. And thank you. It’s so good to hear from constituents like me and to know that he takes seriously and responds to what people write him.
And I thought, I kind of think it would have been better almost if I hadn’t heard anything at all. Because now, not only is it that he didn’t pay attention to what I wrote, and I still have the concern, but now he’s proven that he doesn’t even read it and just didn’t get the time to respond, because he’s written something back that actually is contradictory to what I wrote.
Sometimes when we get just part of the picture of scripture, I think we kind of feel like God’s sending that letter. Because we read about how triumphant he is, and we think, but God, I’ve been praying to you. I’m hurting, I’m confused. I don’t know what to do. I’m at my wits’ end. But God doesn’t send out the form letter.
He knew thousands of years ago what his people over and over and over again would feel, and would experience. And when we think about a psalm like Psalm 10, what he’s saying is, I’m going to actually describe it to you. I’m going to let you know I actually do understand, that I’m not just going to tell you some great things I did and say now, don’t you feel so much better? I’m glad you wrote in.
How much better is it when not just some local politician, but the God of the universe. The God who actually made everything. Made every one of us says, I understand. I can describe exactly the kind of thing that you’re going through. I understand. God isn’t a politician. He doesn’t gloss over the inconvenient and say, oh, don’t pay attention to that. Yeah, we’re talking about my record here and I would like to keep it looking good. So let’s not talk about that. No, he says, I’m the God for the brokenhearted. The God who comes for those who ache.
And so you can come to me and you can say those things, I’m not worried about my reputation. I’m not going to correct you by acting as if it didn’t really happen. What problem? There’s no problem here. Everything’s looking great. Inviting us to come to him in complete honesty with our confused, messy prayers, and come before him and say, God, I don’t know. I’m not even sure what I’m praying. The outcome is because it seems like every outcome is just more disaster. I don’t know, that we can bring that to him and he actually hears it. He actually cares about you. He cares about me. He doesn’t just care about our votes. What he can say to us, to elect him again. He doesn’t need to do that. Doesn’t need to care about us either, but he does.
I’ve always found it striking when you read the book of Job as you get to the end of it, that Job is the one who intercedes for his friends. His friends are saying, Job, you just need to look in yourself and see where your sin is and see how you really didn’t deserve things to go that well anyway. And Job, you need to understand that you’re in over your head here over and over again, right? They’re trying to speak for God. They’re trying to say, Job, it doesn’t matter that you’re laying in a ditch scratching sores on your body. Just smile a little and be thankful that it isn’t even worse.
And it’s Job who has to do the intercession. He has to intercede for his friends before God because God’s angry at them. Yes, he does reveal his glory to Job in a way that puts Job into the right mindset that says, Job, you’re not going to understand all this, but he comes and speaks to Job and then gives Job the task of interceding for his know-it-all friends who think they can speak for God.
And sometimes we miss that aspect of the book of Job, but I think it’s perhaps the most important thing we can take away from it. Yes, we’re not going to understand, but God’s okay. He’s big enough to take us saying, I don’t understand God. He doesn’t grow angry at us for that.
Well, if we can take our honest questions and our honest concerns, our honest struggles, before God, then let’s sharpen the point a little here. And that’s what we see as we go on, we’re going to look at verses 4 to 6. What happens with evil? Verse 4. In the pride of his face, the wicked does not seek him. All his thoughts are there is no God. His ways prosper at all times. Your judgments are on high, out of his sight. As for all his foes, he puffs at them. He says in his heart, I shall not be moved throughout all generations. I shall not meet adversity.
Seems like it’s going pretty well for that man, doesn’t it? I mean, he can say, there is no God and nothing happens. People try to oppose him and he comes out on top. And so we say, what’s wrong with this picture? Does God not care? Does he look at us and just say, eh, yeah. How can it be that evil can go so far as to deny that he even exists? And even worse, as we’ll see in a moment. Evil can say there is no God, even as evil also argues with God. In other words, so often those who insult God and insult his power and speak as if he doesn’t exist. Also, at some level, believe he does exist, and they’re okay challenging God. Not in love, not in a desire to understand him, but in desire to show that they’re great enough. They don’t really need to worry about God. And they get away with it.
Well, we hold back and try not to do what the world calls us to do. Evil does it. And they get away with it. I think it’s one of the big struggles. And I think this is a struggle. I would say social media has only made harder. Because we see so often how people act badly in such amplified ways and they get away with it. And if they get away with it, then why should we bother trying to do what God’s called us to do? Maybe doing what God’s called us to do isn’t even the best way to really experience life, right? Because it seems to work better if you just do whatever you want to do.
Well, the thing is, we need to understand the bigger picture. And for the arrogant, for the proud, for the wicked, what they look at is they say, well, I get away with it, and I’m doing great. I look at those Christians over there they’re all trying to be prim and proper and do what’s right and works fine for me. That just means it’s easier for me to get ahead because the people they’re actually sincerely trying to do what this God that never does anything says that they should do well. They’re just easier to step on. Why’s God allow it?
Romans one. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. And they were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them. Why do they do that? Because they keep getting away with it. And it seems to work.
So not only that God seems distant, it seems like evil is present and successful. But again, here we see in Romans, another acknowledgement, God is not surprised by this. God doesn’t say, what do you mean that evil’s profiting and writhing in power and everything’s going really well for evil? What do you mean? That’s not really happening. God doesn’t play games with us and try to tell us what’s happening, isn’t happening. God says, no, it really is happening.
Here’s the thing though. The wicked, the evil, those who haven’t yet trusted in Jesus, and even those of us who are Christians at times fall into this trap, that if we’re not held accountable in this moment, we get away with something, that means it’s really okay. Doesn’t really matter, right? Our big concern is, can I get away with it or not? I can get away with it? Good, I’ll do it. I can’t get away with it? Well, then I’ll reconsider.
Scripture never says accountability comes at the exact moment we do something. And not being held accountable right now in this moment doesn’t mean not being accountable. The psalmist even sort of hints at this in verse four. As the wicked man says, there is no God what does he say as he goes on to verse five, his ways prosper at all times your judgments are on high out of his sight. That’s a hint of where we’re going here because over the next few weeks, because the key thing is, it’s not that God doesn’t have righteous judgment. It isn’t that God doesn’t really stand for his people. It’s that at times God’s actions are happening behind the scenes and we don’t see it and those doing evil don’t see it. And when we’re doing evil, we don’t see it. But that doesn’t mean that God isn’t at work. It doesn’t mean it’s not being observed.
I’d imagine most of us have at least some experience now with all the different streaming apps out there that you can subscribe to that are supposed to make it so much cheaper to watch television right? Because you can now subscribe to 10 different streaming apps to watch one show on each of them. And so, you have all these streaming apps. And people said, whoa, this is way too much. Right now I still have cable because I have to watch the Cardinals, but I can’t spend that much on streaming apps too, so I know what I’ll do. If several of us get together and we share our passwords. Because even if we only get to watch one at a time, you know, like I’ll watch on Monday night, so-and-so can watch on Tuesday night, right? No problem. We’ll just share our passwords.
And people tried this to try to save some money on streaming and you know what? They found out it worked. Hey. I’m not one of those fools spending all that money on different streaming services. I just get Bob’s passwords. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, Bob. I hate telling you. And then I’m good, right? Because Bob can pay for it. And then I then share a password with Bob right? And you exchange back and forth and it’s all supposed to be just great now. Now we’re not spending all that money. Except for one thing, the streaming services actually are smart enough to catch the people who are doing this. And so over the last year or so, they said, okay, enough of that, and they started crack down. For example, one of the big services in September, if you try to log in it texts that you’re a second user that isn’t really the person subscribing, and they haven’t said exactly how they determine this, I guess, so that people don’t try to defeat it, but if they detect it, they’ll give you the option to add a secondary account for only $8 a month.
Now, they could also sue you because you’ve technically violated the terms of service. They are not going to do that. They don’t want to antagonize their customers. We’re just going to try to lock it down and charge more money. But the key thing is, it isn’t that they’re raising the rate. And I’ve seen some news coverage. Streaming stores are raising the rate can’t share the passwords any longer. But the truth is, you weren’t supposed to ever share the passwords. They’re just going to prevent you from doing it now. There’s a judgment coming. It’s to the tune of $8 a month if you want that service.
Well, God’s judgment is coming as well. And we can think that we can share those passwords and get away with it, that it won’t matter. Disney Plus doesn’t mind. God doesn’t mind either if I’m subscribing to the God’s streaming service and, you know, sometimes I just kind of cheat and I don’t really want to subscribe and pay all the cost of actually having Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I’ll just, you know, my friends go to church and I’ll listen to them talk about the Bible sometimes without fussing too much. That’ll be good enough. Or maybe I’ll just mock them for being foolish enough to pay the price of actually following Jesus because I’m getting along just fine without it.
That’s I am withholding my judgment right now. But it doesn’t mean I’m ignorant of what’s going on. Verse 11. He says in his heart, God has forgotten. He has hidden his face. He will never see it. See, there’s that contradiction in the wicked man. He said there is no God back in verse four, but then he says, oh, God, yeah, he doesn’t ever see it. I think that’s really telling, right? I mean, how many people do we know that say, I don’t believe in God, I’m really angry at him. People do it, right? And maybe we’ve been there. Maybe you’re on tonight and you’re there and that’s why you’re listening because you don’t think God exists, but you’re also really angry at him for how things have gone in your life. And, the psalm’s acknowledging that’s what we do as human beings. We get into that place. The question is, are we going to stay in that place?
Here’s the truth. God is holding back. He’s not given up. Those are two very, very different things. That’s what it says in 2nd Peter 3:9. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promises as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
Think of the streaming services. They’ve been putting up more and more warnings saying, you’re going to have to subscribe. You’re going to have to subscribe if you want to watch. You can’t steal Bob’s passwords. And you can’t steal Tom’s passwords either. Or Kathy’s. Maybe Marlene’s. I don’t know. No, you can’t steal the passwords, right? And so they slowly ramp it up. Well, why do they do that? Because they want to help people move into being full-fledged paying customers. That’s the point, right? Their goal is let’s have more customers. Perfectly legitimate goal if you’re a streaming service.
Well, God withholds judgment for a time for something far better. Not that we would pay him money, not that we become customers, but that we become children of the living God. And in the mystery of his plan, God knows the perfect way that’s most glorifying to him and suits that plan best that he’s going to withhold for a time. He’s been withholding for quite a time now. And he may withhold for another hour. Another week, another year, another century? He doesn’t tell us. Just like streaming services don’t tell you how they figure out that you’re not really the person that’s supposed to be watching.
He doesn’t want us to only decide to subscribe when he’s going to finally crack down. He says, the right time to subscribe is right now. And here’s the difference if you think about it. If you were sharing passwords, well, you get the full viewing experience everything’s really good until that point where you have to pay the money. With God, it’s not that way. We might think it’s that way. We might see other people prospering, but we’re missing out in the fact of actually having a relationship with the God of the universe. Actually, being shaped to be the men and women that God has intended us to be.
And sometimes we get it backwards because it looks like not following him, at least for the time, you know, go enjoy life for a little while longer first is the way to go because the price looks cheaper. But we’re not actually weighing the proper prices. We’re playing this incredibly dangerous game of when our lives will, when will that day be that we say, I’m going to build those bigger barns. And the answer is you fool tonight is the last night of your life. We don’t want to do that.
Silence. Lack of action is not the same as approval or encouragement. We need to understand that. That’s what the Psalm is taking us on a journey through, that we come with these questions, and the solution to those questions is, well, you know, you’re right. The evil do prosper, so go and do likewise because that’s going to work out great for you. Let’s start to see a little bit more of how God’s working.
Read a while back, a story of a man named Austin Riley. Man with a remarkable story. As an infant, he was found to have a brain tumor and had to undergo surgery for that. His very survival was in question, could he survive the surgery? Would he ever be able to function at a normal level? He did, and things seemed to be going pretty well until he got into his early 20s. And then he had a brain hemorrhage. Rinse and repeat. Same question, right? Is he going to survive? Is he going to survive at any kind of functional level? And guess what? At 22, he survived that. And so he defeated some kind of traumatic incident with his brain twice and was able to keep functioning normally and live a normal life. And so it was. His family has a ranch where they raise exotic animals that he worked at and worked with the animals. And like anyone who spends all their time out in the farm working with his animals, he knew their different personalities and characteristics. And yeah, I think it sort of implied in his story that he probably had a bit of a tenderness to those that were going through some sort of challenge, the animals that is, because he’d gone through challenges. And he actually had asked the question why is it that God has allowed me to survive these things?
And so it was in 2017, he was in his late 20s at that point, that one of their ranch’s warthogs gave birth and died. And there was this little baby warthog that had no one to care for it. And he decided to become that warthog’s mother. He was going to take care of that warthog and nurse it to health. Named the warthog Waylon, and Waylon and Austin became best friends. He went everywhere on that ranch with Waylon. And they would play together. He’d go out into the ranch and Waylon would come up behind him and steal something from his back pocket and run off with it, and he’d have to chase them down and so on. They were supposed to be utterly inseparable. So inseparable that you forget the fact that warthog is actually a pretty dangerous creature.
One day he went into the pen and he said he didn’t get the normal look in Waylon’s eyes that he did. And instead, Waylon charged him. Started stabbing him with his long tusks into his legs. And he backed off and thought maybe it had been some kind of mistake that Waylon had gotten spooked, but no, the animal backed up and started charging at him again and puncturing all kinds of organs and just pounding him.
Well, Austin managed to crawl out of the pen. And he says he was laying there in a pool of his own blood, thinking after all these things that God’s gotten me through. Why is it going to end like this? So he could reach his phone. He called, he was about a mile out into the ranch. He called his parents so he could say goodbye to them in case they couldn’t get there before he died. And they rushed out. His dad decided he didn’t trust an ambulance to come fast enough, so he loaded his son up into his truck and took off and rendezvoused with the ambulance. And miraculously. Austin survived and recovered. Again.
I don’t know that we still know the answer to the question of why God has allowed this man to keep overcoming death like that, but clearly there’s some purpose to his life that he hasn’t done yet. Naturally, Waylon did not survive because you can’t have a murderous warthog on a farm, so they had to put Waylon to death. But it struck me as I was reading the story that it looked like hanging out with this animal that could kill you was really okay, even good. But the fact that for 5 years, Waylon and Austin got along just fine didn’t mean that Waylon was safe. As a matter of fact, he wasn’t.
And our sin and the sin that we see in those doing evil in the world, they’re all giant warthogs, ready to pierce us. And if you were a more cautious animal handler, I think you’d look at those, look at Austin there with this amazing warthog following him around like a puppy. You’d think, boy, you know, maybe it’s not so advantageous to be cautious. Because that looks like it could be fun. That looks like it’s pretty neat, right? I mean, this is really amazing. And we look at people doing the sin that they do and getting away with it and sometimes even getting away with it in ways that hurt us. And we say, wouldn’t that be better if I just picked up one of those warthogs too. But the fact that it’s not stabbing us at this particular moment doesn’t mean it’s safe. There aren’t any consequences.
And I think where we really need to confront ourselves is to ask, have I been lulled into thinking success means safety. Because that’s what the world says. If you’re successful, you’re safe, right? Success brings safety. And if what you’re doing brings you success, that must be a safe thing to do. What the Psalm says is, yeah, you’re going to see that. You’re going to see a lot of people with those warthogs going around. It’s got to look like a lot of fun. It’s great to look like success could come from it. But every one of those thin warthogs is dangerous and deadly and ready to attack. It might not seem like it might seem like it’s our friend, right? We find our favorite sins, those ones that we are lulled into sleep over because we say, well, it never hurts me, and it sure would be a lot worse if I gave it up. Be a lot harder. But that long, quiet period where everything goes well doesn’t mean it’s safe.
And the sad thing is a lot of times. Especially with those who don’t yet believe, we start getting stabbed by the warthog and we say, oh, well, you know maybe this isn’t so bad. Maybe I can survive this and I’ll go on. And what God’s challenging us to is whom is it that we’re going to call? When we can reach it, we have one phone call and the blood’s rushing out of us. Whom is it that we’re going to reach the phone and call? And better yet, call before we’re in that state. Austin called his parents and if he’d not done that, he said, oh, it’s too late. Well it probably would have been. And maybe if he tried to call the ambulance directly. Tried to solve it himself. It may have been too late too. He may have expended too much energy. It may have been that they could have gotten there quickly enough because they didn’t know exactly where he was, but his dad knew exactly where he was and his dad brought him to safety.
So to our heavenly Father. He says, call me. When you’re feeling like you’re being stabbed by your own sins or the sins of others call me because I’m the one who can bring you to safety. I’m the one who understands. And our heavenly Father sent his Son into the world to not just say, oh, you know, I know it’s really painful for you, but it’ll be okay, but to actually experience to live through that pain himself. So when we cry out to our God and we say why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why is it that it just keeps going on? I can’t contain this any longer. I’m just so weary, so tired. Why, Lord. You know, just say, well, you’ll be okay. Because I know how you feel because I’ve experienced it myself. But know that the brokenness isn’t the end of the story. See, God isn’t silent. God is busy rewriting our broken song. And in this very psalm as we go through it, and as we go through the next few weeks, he’s going to walk us through how he is rewriting.
The first step is to pick up the phone and to call Him. Because God isn’t silent. He’s there for each and every one of us tonight. Would you pray with me, please?
Father, we do pray that you would help us to understand more clearly how you work. We thank you, Lord, that you do tell us that you understand that things are broken, that things are painful. You don’t make light of that. But you walk with us to make the burden lighter. Lord, would you bring us into the understanding of how you are working. Would you give us the endurance we need to follow your plan, even when it feels like you aren’t working? Even when it hurts? We would praise you because we know that you are the God who is ultimately triumphant. We pray this in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
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