Where do you turn when everything around you has crumbled to ruin? Whether or not it aligns with reality, we’ve all felt at least as though everything was gone. Trouble has a way of compounding in our minds until all we can see is ruin.
Little has changed throughout history.
The psalmist was looking about and saw nothing but ruin. His people were in exile, the temple lay in ruins, and the promised land taken from them. Everything that they had built their self identity upon had been snatched and the psalmist cries out in desperation for Yahweh to restore them.
Why have you rejected us forever, O God?
Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture?
Remember the people you purchased of old, the tribe of your inheritance, whom you redeemed—Mount Zion, where you dwelt.
Turn your steps toward these everlasting ruins, all this destruction the enemy has brought on the sanctuary. (Ps 74:1-3)
We meditate on these verses and, with a little perspective from time and distance, we answer back. You failed to keep up your end of the covenant! Why do you cry out to God we say, when you know you were responsible for the ruin that your life has become.
And then that moment of self-realization hits us.
We too are responsible for those black nights in which it appears that all is in ruin and that the Lord has abandoned us. Is it more likely that someone two-thousand years distant from us will look back on our plea and say, what is wrong with you? You are the one who moved away from God, not He from you.
Grace and peace to you
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LOVE | ACCEPT | FORGIVE 