Even In the Depths

The world is filled with contrasts:  light and dark, hot and cold, health and sickness, fruitfulness and barrenness.  Almost every human experience or condition has an opposite.  We have experienced highs and lows, and when we are in the midst of one extreme the other is almost completely forgotten.  We have felt as free as a child leaving school for a long break, and we have felt like were weighed down with burdens far greater than anyone could bear.  I have found a relationship with God and the guidance of God's Word are critical to maintain a godly and good perspective.  And we need reminders - a lot of them.

David was a man whose spirit rose in joyful worship of God, yet he also experienced low moods and depression.  In his writings we see him saying to himself at times almost to snap himself out of a funk, "What am I thinking?  Trust in God and hope in Him!"  Today my day began reading of such a place in Psalm 42:6-8:  "O my God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar. ⁷ Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. ⁸ Yet the LORD will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life."

David confessed before God his soul was cast down like a sheep that had fallen and could not stand up without help.  He was intentional in remembering the LORD who had called him and brought him through many troubles.  It didn't matter if he was in a deep valley or on a mountaintop, for God is faithful.  In verse 8 David said poetically he was in the depths, and wave after wave knocked him over again and again.  When he was at his lowest point and imagined it impossible to go deeper, further down he went.  God created the oceans which cover the earth to be very deep - deeper than any human being can go alone.  Submersible vessels have been designed to transport people safely through the crushing depths, but without them men could not survive.

Have you ever considered when God created the world He could have made the oceans shallow?  But according to His design He made them very deep, dark, and virtually unfathomable.  Our God who created the heavens to be high also created the depths, and He remains a good God wherever we find ourselves.  Sometimes it takes a season in the depths (as Jonah literally experienced) for us to arrive with the confidence in God David experienced in verse 8:  "Yet the LORD will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life."  Even in the depths God remained good and was David's life.  God's love was evident to David day and night, and therefore David made his prayer unto His God.

What confidence we can have as God's children even in the depths, when it seems wave after wave is pulling us under, when we wonder in desperation, "Do you see what is going on, God?  Have you forgotten all about me?  Don't you know how much I am suffering?  Can't you do something?"  Even in the depths He is there, and in remembering our God and exalting His name there is great comfort found.  The one who cries out to God from the depths demonstrates faith the man at ease may only imagine he has.  How good it is for us in the heights and from the depths to praise our Saviour Jesus Christ and thank Him for the lovingkindness He has shown us.

The Middleman

Sometimes it is to the financial benefit of the buyer to remove the "middleman," one who increases the cost of goods due to their involvement.  For instance, when I planned to propose marriage to Laura I did not buy the solitaire from a shopping mall but from a gem cutter.  In doing so I avoided the markups which are common with jewelry sales and was able to buy a better ring than I could afford otherwise.  The middleman in this context can be an unnecessary man, and I believe this can be true in the arena of prayer.

Paul said this in Philippians 4:6:  "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God..."  This is a verse which divinely instructs and guides us, and it also convicts us when we have gone astray.  Being anxious is a normal human condition and common response to trouble, but anxiousness is not to mark a child of God.  Our prayers are also to be marked with thanksgiving as we make our requests to God.  There is nothing wrong it itself with asking for others to pray or to desire for others to intercede on our behalf.  But there is a problem when we are very good at making our requests known to men but neglect to actually bring them before God.  Prayer meetings have a tendency to be heavy on sharing with others what is happening and how we want God to intervene but light on making our requests known to God.

Concerning prayer Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 2:1-6:  "Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, ² for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. ³ For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, ⁴ who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. ⁵ For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, ⁶ who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time..."  Why rely upon the help of middlemen when we already have one God and Mediator between God and men, the Man Jesus Christ?  When we speak to the Father Jesus is not only our Mediator but our Advocate, one who speaks kindly on our behalf (1 John 2:1).  The people to whom we share our troubles are only able to intercede on our behalf through the same Jesus Christ we trust.

I started thinking:  why do we have the inclination to hope in people rather than trust God?  Perhaps it is because we don't value the personal access God has given His children by His grace.  Perhaps we don't always believe God actually hears us.  Maybe we hope someone in our circle has a more "direct" line to the Almighty than we seem to.  But the reality is God commands us to bring our requests to God.  God has given us by His Spirit the ability to know we have made our requests to God because of the tangible result within us.  See the conditions in Philippians 4:6-7:  "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; ⁷ and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."  The peace of God accompanies the hearts and minds of all who let their requests be made known to God.

The ability to communicate a prayer request to people through email is a wonderful advancement, and it is a blessing to be able to intercede on behalf of others.  But let's not be content to pass off our responsibility to let our requests to God be made by middlemen when we have a Mediator who loves us.  God will always do His part, so let us do ours.

What Do I Wait For?

"And now, Lord, what do I wait for? My hope is in You."

Psalm 39:7

How many times have I placed my hope in something other than God!  Even when he was beset by sin, David concluded his only hope was in God.  God is good to allow difficult situations so those who trust in God will be cast down and realise their hope and expectations have been misplaced.  Pains have a way of revealing our devotion is tinged with selfishness, cares, and worry.  We pray so God will immediately change our circumstances according to our will, and our impatience displays a lack of trust in the God we genuinely trust.

When our hope and trust is placed in God, we will find ourselves sustained and greatly helped even when dangers and troubles multiply.  If our hope for deliverance from sin or trials truly rests in our great God we will not fear, worry, or be impatient.  We will be grateful the Almighty God hears us and answers according to His will and timing.  God established the heavens and earth by His power, and nothing is too hard for Him.  How blessed is the one who hopes in the LORD!

David asked a question it does well for us to answer when we are troubled:  "What do I wait for?"  If we are waiting for a light at the end of the tunnel, waiting for a glimmer of hope due to changed circumstances to bolster our faith, we likely are not placing our hope in the Light of the World Jesus Christ and the promises in His Word.  Since Jesus is our life, He is the only one worthy of our hope.  Praise the LORD that He knows us, loves us, and is faithful.  The immortal perspective of Job comes to mind in the first part of Job 13:15:  "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him..."  God is the One who kills and makes alive, and the Christian must die to self before we can live for Him (Deut. 32:39).  The fear of the LORD frees us from the fear of man, for no one can deliver from His hand.

What do you wait for?  Who do you wait for?  God is patient with us, and let us patiently place our hope in Him.  He is our LORD and our expectations are in Him.

The Perfect Way

How good it is to know we are made righteous, sanctified, and saved by the grace of God!  Many of God's blessings are conditional upon our obedience, but it would be a grave mistake to reduce our relationship with God to a business deal.  Trusting in Jesus is is not like a monetary transaction where the exchange of money confers rights to the buyer and responsibility to the seller.  We have no entitlements as children of God because we have earned them by our good standing with God or our efforts to please Him.  The blessings God supplies we have not earned but received by His grace.  All we deserve is judgment, wrath, and total destruction due to our wickedness, but God delights to bless those deemed righteous by His grace - as well as those who do not regard Him at all.

Those who are born again through faith in Christ and the Gospel will desire and aim to walk in God's ways, and God does reward the humble and obedient.  These rewards are not dependent primarily on our efforts, but these blessings come from a good, gracious, and merciful God.  There is often a visible correlation between obedience and blessing, and there are invisible, eternal guarantees God provides like salvation and fullness of joy.  The blessings seen and unseen we receive from God are all of grace, free gifts God offers to all who trust in Him.  Since God loves us we love Him, and because we love Him we delight to obey Him.  Love is the currency of heaven and the holy motivation God gladly accepts and rewards.

This seeming dichotomy between the grace of God and our efforts is a tricky balance to strike in our minds.  There is something in us which strives to meet God's conditions so the benefits may be ours, and the motivation can be more selfish than godly.  The knowledge of God's grace can also distort our perspective to drift from godly disciplines to lazy and aimless conduct.  We know we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies so our conduct doesn't really matter much, and the flip side is to think everything depends upon our ability to walk uprightly.  Both extremes leave a person depressed:  one can never measure up to God's standard no matter how he tries, and the other sees no need to even try.  The truth is we can never measure up to God's perfect standard through the efforts of the flesh, but at the same time God never is looking for perfection in us.  Perfection is His arena and is all of grace, and He is the one who works this in us.

See what David wrote in 2 Samuel 22:31-33:  "As for God, His way is perfect; the word of the LORD is proven; He is a shield to all who trust in Him. ³² "For who is God, except the LORD? And who is a rock, except our God? ³³  God is my strength and power, and He makes my way perfect."  We might think our reception of God's blessings have all to do with our ability to meet His conditions, but then we might as well be trading money for the benefits we want.  David acknowledged God's way is perfect, and because God was David's strength and power (not merely the source of it) He made David's way perfect too.  Was David perfect?  Hardly.  He needed to offer sacrifices to atone for his sin, and Jesus needed to die on the cross and rise again so we could be justified, sanctified, and saved.  God is a shield to all who trust in Him, and we could not trust Him except God help us.  How great is God's grace and goodness to those who seek and trust Him!  From beginning to end we are His workmanship, and He works in us to will and do of His good pleasure.  What a blessing this is!