OUT OF THE DEPTHS...

Does your soul cry out to God?  When you are met with the dire circumstances of life, to what or whom do you turn?  Often I turn to the people I think will support me, undergird me, encourage me.  Many times I turn to the things I can do to change a situation, to right a wrong.  But that is not where I am to turn.  First and foremost, my thoughts must turn to God.

"Out of the depths I have cried to You, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice!  Let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications...I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I do hope.  My soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning--Yes, more than those who watch for the morning." Psalm 130:1, 5, 6.

In the night of our distress, it may seem futile to voice the heartache we have.  In the abyss of anguish, we may feel unworthy to call upon the Lord.  But our soul must turn to Him.  He is our stay.  He is our anchor.  And while others wait upon the world to care, the systems to act, the governments to prevail, my soul can rest in Him and in His word for consolation.  "The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me." Psalm 138:8.  selahV

[© SelahV Today, hariette petersen, 2008]

Comments

[Amy]

Selahv, the verses you gave spoke to my heart today. It is all about waiting and hoping in Him. Blessings.

[Steve]

Hi Selah V.. I've been overseas for 6 weeks and have missed your quiet time comments...getting back into the real world again today..
Steve

[selahV]

Amy, you are such a dear. I should have answered you days ago. I've been so disconnected from everything lately. selahV

[selahV]

Steve, you cannot begin to know how much this very devotional has been the telling of my soul these last few weeks. I feel like I've been in a dark abyss of silence. I feel as though I've been robbed of spiritual light. Sickness has robbed me of the ability to even dwell in the stillness of the Lord. It's been ongoing for over a month now. Sickness coupled with many other attacks upon my emotions have turned my brain to mush.

There are those who do not comprehend how much one clings to the Lord and His promises in such hours of distress. I find myself without words to describe it all.

I took a break from the daily devotionals because I felt like a hypocrite in telling others to lean, to trust, to fear not, when I myself felt so weak and broken. God must have known how much I needed this kind of voice from you. I told my husband last night that I was tired of me. And God must be pretty sick of me too. Thanks so much for speaking a word of from the Lord to encourage me. selahV

[Steve]

SelahV,
it is so unusual how the Lord uses each of us to support one another in the most unusual and unexpected times and ways.
If I may "encourage you"... my wife and I had a week in ISrael where I understood somethings a little more clearly than I had before. on return 2 days ago I read a passage from james Boice's commentary on Psalm 117. 1 O praise the LORD, all ye nations: praise him, all ye people.
2 For his merciful kindness is great toward us: and the truth of the LORD endureth for ever. Praise ye the LORD.

or HCSB 1 Praise the Lord, all nations! Glorify Him, all peoples!
2 For great is His faithful love to us; the Lord’s faithfulness endures forever. • Hallelujah!

1. The Greatness of God's grace.. He is praised among the nations.. not Israel alone, but a prophecy of the incoming of the gentiles into the Kingdom of God.
..Here is a BIG Picture on Gods purposes worldwide.. and if it costs the lives of some christians to be christians in some lands so that others may be saved... the BIG picture is God will be praised... and what if it were me or you that should have to suffer and die... what of it... God will be praised.

2. The Greatness of God's Love.
Based upon Exodus 34:6
The Lord came down in a cloud, stood with him there, and proclaimed [His]name • Yahweh.
6 Then the Lord passed in front of him and proclaimed: Yahweh—Yahweh is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in faithful love and truth,
7 maintaining faithful love to a thousand [generations], forgiving wrongdoing, rebellion, and sin. But He will not leave [the guilty]unpunished, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ wrongdoing on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation. 8 Moses immediately bowed down to the ground and worshiped.

God's Love is great and there is nothing greater than that. Did the Jews not receiving it and rejecting their Messiah stop God from being a God of Love? The answer is no. Whatever we face whereever we are, whichever way the wind blows, God is love.
CH Spurgeon once noted that a farmer was in all sorts of strife for building a barn and on the barn placing a weather vain that said "God is love" . his neighbors considered it blasphemous and took him to task. "Are you saying that God's love is like the wind, variable and changing?" He replied "No! But whatever way the wind blows down here for me, one thing remains the same, God is love."
"Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face" said Cowper.
Whether we feel it or not, one thing remains true, God is love.

3. The Greatness of God's faithfulness.
Whether we feel it or not one thing remains true, the greatness of God's faithful love to His people.
I have struggled with God's faithfulness to the Jews.
yes, by their own sin, He handed them over to deportation to Babylon.
Yes by their own sin he handed them over to eternal destruction in the rejection of the Messiah.
Yet in God's faithfulness to His people there will come a time when He will save "all Israel"
Romans 11:25 So that you will not be conceited, brothers, I do not want you to be unaware of this • mystery: a partial hardening has come to Israel until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written: The Liberator will come from Zion; He will turn away godlessness from Jacob. 27 And this will be My covenant with them,when I take away their sins.28 Regarding the gospel, they are enemies for your advantage, but regarding election, they are loved because of their forefathers, 29 since God’s gracious gifts and calling are irrevocable.
One day His love and faithfulness will prevail over the Jewish people. Zechariah reminds us that they will receive the Messiah Zech 12-14 at the last day.

If God can be so faithful to those who reject the gospel now and refuse His love now, will He not much mroe be faithful to we who have entered the New Covenant through His Son's loving sacrifice?
Will He not be faithful in His love to you and I, even though we go through seasons when we do not feel His love?

Does this not mean that no matter what we feel or think, that we can and must trust the covenant love of God that He has to us?
Boice goes on to quote Romans 8: 35 Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or anguish or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
36 As it is written: Because of You we are being put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered.37 No, in all these things we are more than victorious through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will have the power to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord!

We often forget that verse 37.. "super conquerors" is connected to verse 36.."we are put to death all day long"
In God's grand scheme of it all, our suffering is not the main scene on the stage, rather it si God's continuing love to us, and our assurance of it, even though everything in our circumstances, everything in our day to day existence seems to speak the opposite.
He is saying tht there is one thing mroe fixed and more true than our physical circumstances, and that is the covenant love that God has to His people, even though you and I may not feel it, or know it in our cicrcumstances.. His lvoe and faithfulness are rock solid pillars that this is true.
How do you and I know that today?
He, look at the Jews. They are there today. They could not and would not be there today in Jerusalem, were God not working His purposes out to display again His covenant love to those who will turn to the Messiah, Jesus.

I should not blame Boice for all these thoughts... soem are my own mixed in.. but I thought "how strange, that the very thing you are experiencing now is something God had answered deep to my own soul just this last 2 days before I read your notes at http://selahvtoday.typepad.com"
I guess this is the greatness of the faithfulness and love of God.
Psalm 73 should be on my gravestone one day :
23 Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand.
24 Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.
26 My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.
27 For, lo, they that are far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from thee.
28 But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord GOD, that I may declare all thy works.

So many of us love and appreciate the depths of your comments in your devotions, and love you in the Lord in your faithfulness to Him in trial.
The Lord is with you SelahV, and we are too.
Steve

[Vicki]

Hey friend...I'm thinking of you...holding you in prayer. Thanks for this post.