After The Party

These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the Mighty One with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng. Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again— my Savior and 6 my God! Now I am deeply discouraged, but I will remember you even from distant Mount Hermon, the source of the Jordan, from the land of Mount Mizar. Psalm 42:4-6

The first thing he does is he Reflects on the Past. He’s at a point where he’s questioning God and whether or not He’s there and whether or not he cares. And the first thing he does is he reminders himself that God has been faithful in the past. All those weird places and locations held meaning and memories. They were both distant in time and location. But he’s remembering when he was there and what God did then. ??Remember and reflecting is important, but we don’t like to do that. It’s always onto the next thing in our culture. But we must reflect on where we’ve been.

Story of 2017 not being a good year… It’s important for me to reflect on the past. Because the present wasn’t good and it was tempting to take my trust away from God.

He continues…

The Second thing he does is he Declares his Confidence in God. Look back at verse 5… I will put my hope in God… Catch this… Even though his circumstances are bad.

I’m tempted to base of faith, and my level of trust in God. Based on how good my life is. But the problem is sometimes life isn’t good.

Now I don’t have time today to answer this question… But come back for this next series “God Can’t Handle This…”

We might not call it this… But a lot of our faith is based around Karma. You do good you get good, you do bad you get bad. We don’t call it that, but that’s what it is. Listen that’s not our faith. Our faith is that you get the opposite of what you deserve.

Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see. Hebrews 11:1

Declaring your confidences is just saying that you believe that what God says is true… Even when it doesn’t make sense.

I heard faith described this way once… Think of it as a tapestry… Look at the back, it’s just a mess.

That’s faith… That’s what it means to have confidence. That even when life doesn’t make sense, that you will trust that God can see what you cannot. And that he will guide you through it.

He ends with…

Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again— my Savior and my God! Psalm 42:11

The final thing that he does is he Anticipates the Future. He reflects, he displays his confidence, and then he anticipates the future. If God can do all this in the past, surely he can work out the future.

Maybe you can relate to me… But this last step is hard for me… I know God has been good to me in the past. The only reason I am who I am today is because he’s got me here. But I doubt that he has the best intentions in mind for my future…

Application

So what do we do with all this?