AP

Psalm 80:4-7  How long, LORD God Almighty, will your anger smoulder against the prayers of your people?  You have fed them with the bread of tears; you have made them drink tears by the bowlful.  You have made us an object of derision to our neighbours, and our enemies mock us.  Restore us, God Almighty; make your face shine on us, that we may be saved.

I am very thankful to our Sovereign Lord God that he has included in his inspired Word the 12 Psalms ‘Of Asaph’ (50, 73-83).  This Levite, appointed by King David to exercise his musical gifts in the Temple worship, has the same struggle with God’s perplexing Providence as we often do.  Yes. we are sinners, and God is holy and just, but he is also compassionate and merciful, and there are so many examples in the history of his people of his expressing his compassion and mercy in answer to their penitent cries for help, that when this doesn’t happen, we struggle to understand.

This happens at a personal level, as well as at a national level and international level.  Asaph’s psalms encourage us to persist in earnest prayer, because, even when everything seems to be going wrong, and our prayers are being addressed to an Almighty God who seems to be ‘smouldering with anger’ against us, he remains a God who is in full control over all things, and who is able to make his ‘face shine on us’, and who is able to save.

The big advantage we have over Asaph is that we can see how God has been faithful in this way in Jesus.  We will still struggle with God’s perplexing Providence, when our earnest, heartfelt, even contrite, prayers are not answered in the way we would like them to be, just as it was for Jesus himself in the Garden of Gethsemane!  I often find my heart singing under my breath: “I will trust my Saviour, Jesus, when my darkest doubts befall; trust him when to simply trust him seems the hardest thing of all.  I will trust my Saviour, Jesus, trust him when my strength is small, for I know the shield of Jesus is the safest place of all.  Jesus, only Jesus, help me trust you more and more; Jesus, only Jesus, may my heart be ever yours.”

I can say, for sure, from decades of many struggling experiences, that (somehow in ways I don’t always understand): “Whate’er my God ordains is right, he never will deceive me; he leads me by the proper path – I know he will not leave me.  I take, content, what he has sent, his hand can turn my griefs away, and patiently (mostly, but sadly perhaps, not always – Job remains my inspiration!), I wait his day, and patiently, I wait his day.”    When I pray for my persecuted brothers and sisters throughout the world, and I hear of the persecution intensifying, and when I read of the Lord Jesus Christ and his Gospel being mercilessly mocked by hostile media, I am thankful that Asaph reminds me that my loving, omnipotent God understands, even if I can’t – and I must just continue ‘eating my bread with tears’ and ‘drinking tears by the bowlful’! And keep on praying.  One day Jesus is coming back to reign.  Come, Lord Jesus!

– Bruce Christian