There’s no guarantees in life. We know this, despite all the blessings around us. We know it in a deep down part of our hearts. But it is covered with this phony veneer that gets layer after layer of positive reinforcement. We hear it from well meaning parents and friends, “Everything is going to be all right.”
I find myself telling people that all the time, too much really. Who am I to say? This is kind of a big deal, and I’d like to break it down into two smaller sections. One, to say “everything is going to be all right,” is patently false. We live in a fallen world, and we will lose, suffer, get embarrassed, slip, fall, etc… We are just as sure as the sun rose this morning that life brings hardship. No matter our age, we have seen the effects of this reality. Whether it is an earthquake in Haiti that kills 200,000 people, or a cancer that kills one, or a relationship that fails without our knowing why. The list could go on and on. It applies to huge stuff and small stuff. Now, I know this sounds pessimistic, but face it, we’ve got mortality against us.
But I said two sections, and the second might turn that frown upside down a bit. Here we look at that axiom “everything is going to be all right” and say, well, it really is true after all. I know, this seems like a contradiction based on what I just said, but guess what, contradictions are part of God’s plan as well. Here is the truth: We who are believers live under the loving hand of God, and no matter of suffering, loss, and sin can separate us from Him. Father is so in love with us, He will never leave us. I love how Jesus tells his disciples that after he is crucified and dies, he will still not abandon us. that was a contradiction, but he says, “I am coming to you.” Go read John 14. Do you see that promise, I will not leave you as orphans, I am coming to you. What we can say as Christians is this: things aren’t going great now, but they will be, and while they are not going great, we are still not abandoned to face them alone. But even if they are going great, we still cannot put our trust in the hope that good times will continue forever, we must still submit to Christ! We have the promise of the never-leaving presence of God in our life.
Now, that I’ve laid out in very sparse terms this idea that there is pain and their is comfort, let’s look practically at how we apply that. I’m not going to give you 7 Things to Do to Be a Happy Go Lucky Person (And Popular too WooHoo!). There is one thing we will be focusing on: turning it over every day.
I am doing a personal study in the Book of Hebrews, and this morning I read these beautiful words. “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving hear, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.” Heb: 3:12-14, ESV (NIV)
This is our obligation, and the foundation of our ability through Christ to deal with the certainty of pain and blessing, that we will neither be hardened to God in pain, nor become lazy and selfish in blessing. We do this by saying, “What I have is Yours, and everything I encounter today will draw me closer to You because I trust in You.”
This is a very practical discipline for Christians. Start your day today with this mindset. No matter what, you have turned it over to Christ today. Now we just have to not try to jerk it back out of his hands when things start getting shaky. We’ll talk more on that later. Oh, and BTW, this is as simple as I have said, but far more difficult than it sounds!
G&P2U,
JB
Psalm 4 (and commentaries)
Psalm 4
For the director of music. With stringed instruments. A psalm of David.
1Answer me when I call to you, O my righteous God.
Give me relief from my distress;
be merciful to me and hear my prayer.
2How long, O men, will you turn my glory into shame?
How long will you love delusions and seek false gods? Selah
3Know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself;
the Lord will hear when I call to him.
4In your anger do not sin;
when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent. Selah
5Offer right sacrifices and trust in the Lord.
6Many are asking, “Who can show us any good?”
Let the light of your face shine upon us, O Lord.
7You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound.
8I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.
David was a preacher, a royal preacher, as well as Solomon; many of his psalms are doctrinal and practical as well as devotional; the greatest part of this psalm is so, in which Wisdom cries to men, to the sons of men (as Prov. 8:4, 5), to receive instruction. The title does not tell us, as that of the former did, that it was penned on any particular occasion, nor are we to think that all the psalms were occasional, though some were, but that many of them were designed in general for the instruction of the people of God, who attended in the courts of his house, the assisting of their devotions, and the directing of their conversations: such a one I take this psalm to be. Let us not make the prophecy of scripture to be of more private interpretation than needs must, 2 Pt. 1:20. Here I. David begins with a short prayer (v. 1) and that prayer preaches. II. He directs his speech to the children of men, and, 1. In God’s name reproves them for the dishonour they do to God and the damage they do to their own souls (v. 2). 2. He sets before them the happiness of godly people for their encouragement to be religious (v. 3). 3. He calls upon them to consider their ways (v. 4). III. He exhorts them to serve God and trust in him (v. 5). IV. He gives an account of his own experiences of the grace of God working in him, 1. Enabling him to choose God’s favour for his felicity (v. 6). 2. Filling his heart with joy therein (v. 7). 3. Quieting his spirit in the assurance of the divine protection he was under, night and day (v. 8).
Ps 4:1-8. On Neginoth, that is, stringed instruments, as the kind of musical accompaniment. On other parts of title, see [569]Introduction., The historical occasion was probably the same as that of the foregoing [see on [570]Ps 3:1]. The writer, praying for further relief, admonishes his enemies of the vanity of attacking God’s servant, exhorts them to repentance, and avows his confidence and peace in God’s favor.
1. Hear-as in Ps 3:4.
God of my righteousness-or, “my righteous God, as my holy hill” (Ps 2:6), who will act towards me on righteous principles.
thou hast enlarged-expresses relief afforded in opposition to “distress,” which is expressed by a word denoting straits or pressure. Past favor is a ground of hope for the future.