The Spirit's Whisper

Why are you downcast, O my soul? 
       Why so disturbed within me? 
       Put your hope in God, 
       for I will yet praise him, 
       my Savior and my God. Psalm 42:11

Today’s Reading: Psalms 40-42; Acts 27:1-26

The Psalmist has some serious inner dialog going on here. He is talking to his soul, asking why it is so down. He is reasoning with it to help lift it up.

Have you ever had those mornings where it was just entirely too hard to get out of the bed? Maybe you were sad about something; you lost your job, broke up with a significant other, or were let down by a friend. Part of you just wanted to stay tucked away under the covers and sleep the day away.

Some of us deal with depression by sleeping our sorrows away. Others of us eat them away, or escape from them through drugs or other risky behavior.

But when we are doing these things there is always that little voice inside that is trying to steer us back on the right path. There is always part of us resisting, trying to lift us up so that we can stand on our own two feet again.

This is what I see in the passage above. I see a person who is feeling down and out. They are feeling like there is no hope, no future, no possible way out of the troubles of the day. Their soul is low and sad. They are stuck in a rut. But from deep down within their spirit came the voice that wrote this psalm crying out to the man’s soul to pick itself up and praise its way to happiness.

When we are feeling down by no means are we totally out. Try to listen to that other voice that we all have within us; the voice that laughs when the rest of you wants to cry, the voice that sings when you are in the shower, that laughs at yourself when you trip and fall, that looks at hardships as opportunities to be blessed, that finds love through the shadows of hate.

Just remember that this voice is within all of us. It is up to us whether or not we want to listen to its song. 

The Lord Taketh Away?

At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said:
       "Naked I came from my mother's womb,
       and naked I will depart.
       The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;
       may the name of the LORD be praised."

In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing. – Job 1: 20-22

Today’s Reading: Job 1-2; Acts 7:22-43

The Lord Taketh away?

So I’m sure many of you have heard the old saying “The Lord giveth, and the lord taketh away.”

Why do people quote this as if it is a spiritual truth? Job is the one who actually said it and it was out of an effort to make sense of all of the disaster happening in his life.

It also wasn’t accurate; Satan did all that stuff to him. But on the flip side God allowed it to happen. So does the allowing it to happen mean that God did it?

Tricky…

The consistent pattern in the Bible is that we lie in the beds that we make for ourselves. Earlier in the chapter it is stated that Job made sacrifices to cover for his kids in case they sinned. So what I inferred from that was that Job was the reason they were protected at that point… they didn’t take it up on themselves to cover themselves and as a result they could get smashed on.

Ummm.  Eh… I don’t know.

But yeah… this is one of those books. It deals with the complexity of trying to understand loss and trials. Where is the purpose in it? How are we supposed to carry ourselves in these times of trouble and pain?

Hopefully Job will teach us something; because as of right now, I don’t get it.