Typical

 I felt led to read Psalm 89 a while ago, and have been coming back to it.  I've been finding it a little puzzling and disturbing.  

It starts out with this great declaration:  "I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever; with my mouth I will make known Your faithfulness to all generations."  And it goes on for 18 verses, lauding His greatness and faithfulness.  In fact, the word "faithful" shows up in verses 1, 2, 5 and 8 just in this section.

Then there are another 18 verses where the psalmist (somebody named Ethan the Ezrahite) extols God's covenant promises to King David, and again speaks of His faithfulness.  "My mercy I will keep for him forever, and My covenant shall stand firm with him...My covenant I will not break, nor alter the word that has gone out of My lips" (vv. 28, 34).

Abruptly, in verse 38, the theme completely changes and we have "but You have cast off and abhorred, You have been furious with Your anointed.  You have renounced the covenant of Your servant; You have profaned his crown by casting it to the ground.  You have broken down all his hedges; You have brought his strongholds to ruin," etc.  This continues to the second last verse.  What happened to "I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever"?

In the final verse, there is one last pathetic little "Blessed be the Lord forevermore!  Amen and Amen."  That reminds me of my neighbour lady who used to come over and complain about everybody and everything in her life, and then sigh and say sadly, "Well, praise the Lord anyway."

As I said, I'm finding this a little troubling.  All this lumped into one psalm is a little hard to take.

But, as I think about it, it's typical of us mortal humans.  We can be so thankful and express such gratitude in one breath, and then complain bitterly as soon as everything is not exactly as we wish.

The children of Israel were led out of Egypt in a spectacular display of God's power and protection, and they danced and sang, "Sing to the Lord for He has triumphed gloriously!  The horse and its rider He has thrown into the sea!"  But three days into the wilderness, they found no water.  Their rejoicing turned quickly to complaining.  I get that no water is a big issue, but just think about what God has just done for you, people!  Expect Him to be prepared for even this!  If He can divide the Red Sea, and lead you through it on dry ground, and then close the waters back over the enemy behind you, can you not think that maybe He's got this?

Time after time, they saw God meet their needs, and time after time, they were so ready to gripe and accuse God of leading them out of Egypt to kill them in the wilderness.  I get impatient with them as I read that history.  

But, I know I have been guilty of the same, and am ever capable of giving in to attitudes of "woe-is-me", "what are You doing to me, God?", "why me?" and "it's not fair".

The book by Joyce Meyer I mentioned in a recent blog has a lot to say about praise, worship, bowing before God in reverence.  I'll quote a bit from pages 81-83:  "Worshiping needs to come before asking.  In our prayers, there needs to be more praise than petition...It is fine to ask God for things.  The Bible teaches us to do so, but I don't believe it is where we should start our conversations with God...When we tell God, 'I magnify You,' we are literally saying, 'I make You bigger than any problem or need that I have'...we should make Him larger than anything else in our life.  When we worship and praise Him, we are doing just that.  We are saying, 'You are so big, so great, that I want to worship You.'  By putting worship first, we are also saying, 'You're bigger than any need I have."

Let's be quick to worship, slow to grumble, ready to trust, magnifying His power and goodness and faithfulness, keeping His promises in our focus, and reminding ourselves of all the victories and glorious answers He has provided in the past.  He is El Shaddai, Almighty God who is more than enough.   Let's stick with the first section of Psalm 89.  Like verse 13:  "You have a mighty arm, and strong is Your hand, and victorious is Your right hand."  It's the same right hand as in Isaiah 41:10, which has come up a lot in my blogs:  "Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you, I will help you, yes, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand."

With the power and grace of God in us, we can be atypical as far as usual human behaviour goes, and live up to the potential of "I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever; with my mouth I will make known Your faithfulness to all generations."