Psalm 77: 1 – 20
Who changed?
To the Chief Musician. To Jeduthun. A Psalm of Asaph.
1 I cried out to God with my voice—To God with my voice; And He gave ear to me. 2 In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; My hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing; My soul refused to be comforted. 3 I remembered God, and was troubled; I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. Selah 4 You hold my eyelids open; I am so troubled that I cannot speak. 5 I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times. 6 I call to remembrance my song in the night; I meditate within my heart, and my spirit makes diligent search. 7 Will the Lord cast off forever? And will He be favorable no more? 8 Has His mercy ceased forever? Has His promise failed forevermore? 9 Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has He in anger shut up His tender mercies? Selah 10 And I said, “This is my anguish; But I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High.” 11 I will remember the works of the LORD; Surely I will remember Your wonders of old. 12 I will also meditate on all Your work, and talk of Your deeds. 13 Your way, O God, is in the sanctuary; Who is so great a God as our God? 14 You are the God who does wonders; You have declared Your strength among the peoples. 15 You have with Your arm redeemed Your people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. Selah 16 The waters saw You, O God; The waters saw You, they were afraid; The depths also trembled. 17 The clouds poured out water; The skies sent out a sound; Your arrows also flashed about. 18 The voice of Your thunder was in the whirlwind; The lightnings lit up the world; The earth trembled and shook. 19 Your way was in the sea, Your path in the great waters, and Your footsteps were not known. 20 You led Your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
Surely there are things about yourself that you don’t like. So, you change them, right? Well, not exactly. It’s more likely that you keep on doing them, even though you say you’d like to change them. So is the old adage, “A leopard can’t change his spots,” true? Then does this also say, people can’t change?
No, people can change.
But you can’t just snap your fingers and say goodbye to well-established patterns, even when those patterns result in bad consequences. Sure, you wish it could be easier. You may be impatient with yourself, giving yourself a good scold: “Just stop it already!” Oh, how I hate the word “just” when it pertains to change. We don’t change “just” because someone (even ourselves) wants us to.
However, the opposite stance also is filled with flaws. Chase away those demons that tell you that you can’t change it’s too hard, it’s not in your DNA, it requires excessive effort. Such a mindset will sabotage your efforts before you even begin. Though it’s true that “you are who you are” and that your personality structure “is what it is,” it’s not true that you can’t modify, alter, or tweak many aspects of how you behave.
So, how do you change?
It’s a process that begins with being aware. This may seem obvious, but it’s not. If you’re used to blaming everyone else for your problems, then you’re not aware. If you’re living your life in a daze, blaming bad luck, then you’re in denial. How are you ever going to change anything if you don’t own up to how your thinking and behavior help create the predicament you’re in?
Self-awareness without judgment, like an anthropologist observing behavior in an attempt to understand it, is the first step. Yet, you can be fully aware of your bad habits and still not change. What’s missing?
A no-nonsense commitment to change is what’s missing. Casual commitment won’t do. Going on a diet for a week doesn’t hack it. Add exercise to the mix for two weeks, it still doesn’t hack it. What’s a no-nonsense commitment to change? In your quiet moment of truth, when you’re alone and not under pressure by anything or anyone, you, your ‘executive’ self in harmony with your ‘emotional’ self, make a solemn pledge to change.
No more excuses. No more magical thinking. No more self-sabotage. You know it won’t be easy, but so what? You’re committed to the goal.
You acknowledge the need for self-discipline, perseverance, and hard work. You know why you want to change. You know who you want to be. You know that your actions need to adhere to your beliefs. You know it makes no sense claiming you want to change but then doing nothing about it. You’re tired of disappointing yourself. You’re fed up with feeling frustrated. You welcome change. You’re ready to go. You get off your butt. And you get off your excuse-making ‘but.’
Adopting new ways rarely comes comfortably at first. You may feel a lot of resistance to change. But if you think about change as an opportunity to grow, not as an unwanted burden, amazing things can happen.
Don’t let rigidity or fear stifle your growth. Don’t get down on yourself by believing that just because everything hasn’t changed, nothing has changed.
Even moderate change can reap meaningful benefits. And here’s the best news of all. Change that moves in a positive direction will not only expand your confidence, it can enrich your relationships, enhance your career, and empower your well-being. Wow, what a payoff!
So, if you make a commitment to do all that I explained than I will ask again, ‘Can People Really Change?’
How about I offer you an easier path. Here are two verses that I want you to think about.
Matthew 19: 25 -26, “25 When His disciples heard it, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” 26 But Jesus looked at them and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
Philippians 1: 5 – 6, “5 for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ”
In just these two parts of scripture we find our answer;
1. Who can be saved
2. (For) men (and women) this is impossible
3. With God all things are possible
4. Your fellowship in the gospel (the word of God changes you)
5. He who has begun a good work in you will complete it. (He causes, you to change and it is for the better)
So, the way we need to look at this question is to admit that (We) I can’t, He (our Holy King Jesus) can, so why not let Him. (Do all the driving)
In today’s scripture chapter we find the Psalmist throw out a lot of questions at us to consider these very issues. Let us take some time now to investigate.
To the Chief Musician. To Jeduthun. A Psalm of Asaph
This Psalm is again a ‘Psalm of Asaph’, dedicated for Temple worship to the Chief Musician. Jeduthun, along with Asaph and Heman, was a leader in Tabernacle worship in the time of David, directly under the order of the king (1 Chronicles 25.6), singing and playing on the brazen cymbals (1 Chronicles 16.41). He continued to hold this position in the time of Solomon (2 Chronicles 5.12). His descendant officiated in the time of Josiah and was the king’s seer (2 Chronicles 35.15). ‘After the manner of’ may indicate that the family of Jeduthun was responsible for the setting or musical composition of the Psalm.
The Psalm is very much one of the triumphs of faith over adversity, a faith expressed strongly in verse 1. For although from the Psalm we learn that his heart and soul were deeply troubled as it appeared as though God had forgotten His people, he also remembered God’s goodness of long before so that he could still commence by saying with confidence, ‘I will cry to God -- and He will give ear to me’. He was sure that although things looked dark, and he had only the past to go on, God could not fail His people in the end. Thus, he would go on praying ‘in the dark’ sure that in the end God would hear and respond.
Thus, the whole Psalm hinges on verse 1. It is his statement of faith there which triumphs over all that follows. In the face of all his dark experience described in verses 2-10 he is determined to hold on to the fact that God does hear him (verse 1), a certainty which he sees as confirmed by the fact that God had in the past safely delivered His people (11-20). Surely, He must then at some stage respond and do it again?
Against all past evidence the Psalmist declares his faith that God will hear him at some time in the future.
1 I cried out to God with my voice—To God with my voice; And He gave ear to me.
We must not under-appreciate the deep faith of the Psalmist in the face of inscrutability of God, for the Psalm begins with a declaration of total trust in God as the answerer of prayer. And he does this despite what he will go on to say about his having agonized in the past in seemingly hopeless prayer, in the face of adversity, without any clear response. Despite that he declares his confidence that, when he cries to God with his voice, God will hear him however bleak the future looks. He will not allow the past and his seeming unanswered prayer to blight his faith. He will go on praying confidently. This is not simply a trite saying about prayer which makes him sounds spiritual. It is a certainty hammered out amid the darkest of circumstances.
While his praying might appear to have failed in the past, and he has spent much time in soul searching and tears without response, he is still confident that God will hear in the future. He will battle on in prayer until it is so.
Many a believer goes through this dark night of the soul when God for a while appears to be unresponsive. But through it all such a believer must be like the Psalmist and recognize that God does still hear, however much past experience may suggest otherwise. ‘He who comes to God must believe that He Is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him’ (Hebrews 11.6), whatever the past may suggest.
He now describes how in the day of his trouble he sought the Lord, only to be troubled and overwhelmed in spirit.
2 In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; My hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing; My soul refused to be comforted.
He asserts how diligently he had sought the Sovereign Lord, stretching out his hand unwaveringly, refusing in his inner heart to be comforted with anything less than God’s wholehearted response. He was desperate. He was determined to receive an answer. He would accept nothing less.
3 I remembered God, and was troubled; I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. Selah
In vivid words that bring the past into the present he makes clear that he had remembered God, and yet he had continued to be troubled. He had pondered the situation facing him and his people and his spirit had been overwhelmed. Why did God not do something?
Unable to sleep in the face of adversity he is so troubled that he is rendered speechless, and his mind goes back to when prayer had been a joy and there had been a song in his heart. Search as he will he find an answer to his present situation.
4 You hold my eyelids open; I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
He continues to describe his despair in prayer. God has kept his eyes awake. His nights were sleepless, and he has been so troubled that he could not even speak. He simply did not know what to say. All he could think was, “Oh God, where are you?’
5 I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times. 6 I call to remembrance my song in the night; I meditate within my heart, and my spirit makes diligent search.
In his darkness he looked back at the past. He considered past times. and the years that had gone by. He remembered the times when in his heart there a song in the night had been, and he talked to his heart about it and searched his spirit diligently. But he found no answer. What had changed so that he was now in such despair? Where had he gone wrong? Why had he lost his song in the night? Why was everything so blank?
As he thinks about God he is brought to a sense of God’s inactivity. He is filled with a threefold fear:
. That for some reason their Sovereign Lord will no longer show favor to His people (verse 7).
. That their covenant God is no longer willing to fulfil His promises (verse 8).
. That their once merciful God has forgotten His gracious love and compassion (verse 9).
7 Will the Lord cast off forever? And will He be favorable no more?
In his despair he has even begun to question God. Will the Sovereign Lord cast off His people forever? Will He be favorable to them no longer? Does He no longer look on them as His people for whom He is responsible? Will He not help them in their day of trouble?
8 Has His mercy ceased forever? Has His promise failed forevermore?
Has their covenant God forgotten His love expressed and revealed in the covenant, so that that love has vanished forever? Is His promise (to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) no longer valid? Will it never again be effective?
9 Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has He in anger shut up His tender mercies? Selah
Worst of all was the fear that the God of mercy had ceased to know how to show compassion towards His people. Had He forgotten how to be gracious? Had He in His anger closed His heart towards His people so that He no longer showed them lovingkindness? Had He abandoned them?
10 And I said, “This is my anguish; But I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High.”
we can see this as saying that the Psalmist’s great grief is that the years (changed) of the right hand of the Most High has no longer been active on their behalf.
At this point his hopes arise as he thinks back to what has been in the past. In the blackness of his despair, when all appears lost, he turns his thoughts back to the days of old when God did act on behalf of His people, and hope springs up within his heart. He remembers Who God Is and what He has done of old.
11 I will remember the works of the LORD; Surely I will remember Your wonders of old. 12 I will also meditate on all Your works and talk of Your deeds.
Out of his gloom he takes a positive glance at the past. He will declare the deeds of YHWH (YAH) and will recall His wonders of old. He will meditate on all that He has done in the past and ponder His great exploits.
13 Your way, O God, is in the sanctuary; Who is so great a God as our God?
This then brings him to recognize that God acts in holiness and uniqueness, in such a way that it reveals Him as greater and more righteous than all gods. What He has done in the past has revealed Him as far above all, so that there is none as great as He. For ‘Who Is a great God like God?’
14 You are the God who does wonders; You have declared Your strength among the peoples.
And this verdict arose from what He had accomplished at the Exodus, when He had performed great wonders and had made known His might among the nations (Exodus 15.14-15). It had been a never to be forgotten feat.
15 You have with Your arm redeemed Your people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. Selah
Then with His mighty arm He had redeemed His people from bondage in Egypt, ‘the sons of Jacob and Joseph’. The combination of Jacob and Joseph again pointed to the time in Egypt when Joseph was prominent, along with Jacob. The Egyptians would have connected Israel with ‘Jacob and Joseph’.
The introduction of the Exodus deliverance now leads on to a description of the never to be forgotten experience at the Red Sea in terms of a mighty storm.
16 The waters saw You, O God; The waters saw You, they were afraid; The depths also trembled. 17 The clouds poured out water; The skies sent out a sound; Your arrows also flashed about.
On the amazing day all of nature had been aware of the presence of God. The waters saw Him and were afraid and drew back. The very depths trembled. The clouds poured out water when needed, the skies thundered, lightning flashed on every side. God was there amid the storm. The description is bringing out the glory of God’s mighty intervention and presence. (
18 The voice of Your thunder was in the whirlwind; The lightnings lit up the world; The earth trembled and shook.
The great wind that divided the waters has become a whirlwind, in which also, as it swirled around, was the sound of God’s thunder. Lightnings lit up the world. The earth trembled and shook, as it might well at the presence of the Almighty. The point is that God was revealed in all His power.
19 Your way was in the sea, Your path in the great waters, and Your footsteps were not known.
What had been sea became dry land so that His people could pass. He made a way in the sea. He made paths in the great waters. And then He covered it all up by bringing in the sea again. No trace of His footsteps was left. Next morning it was as though none of it had ever been apart from the debris of the Egyptian army. None would know that God had passed by. But Israel would never forget.
The remembrance of the redemption of Israel in such a powerful way aroused faith in the Psalmist’s heart. Surely the God Who had done this for His people would not forget them? This is what gives him his confidence in verse 1.
20 You led Your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
And the result of His mighty deliverance was that God, as Shepherd of His people, led them like a flock under His under-shepherds Moses and Aaron. The mighty storm had subsided, and all was peace as He led His people through the wilderness.
The abrupt ending is intended. All was now well. His people were being led in safety. And in the same way the Psalmist was confident that, after the tumult of his prayer life, God would hear his prayer and deliver His people again. For, whatever the tumult of the present circumstances, this was clearly His intention for His people. After the storm came peace.
