All the day my enemies taunt me. Those who deride me use my name for a curse. For I eat ashes like bread and mingle tears with my drink because of Your indignation and anger. For you have taken me up and thrown me down. My days are like an evening shadow. I wither away like grass. But You, O Lord, are enthroned forever. You are remembered throughout all generations. You will arise and have pity on Zion. It is the time to favor her. The appointed time has come. For Your servants hold her stones dear and have pity on her dust. Nations will fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth will fear His glory. For the Lord builds up Zion. He appears in His glory. He regards the prayer of the destitute and does not despise their prayer. (Verses 8-17, italics mine)
Ever feel like you're just taking up space in this world. That, like the evening shadow, you're fading quickly. Or your place in life is like a patch of dead grass in the midst of all that green? No appetite. Many tears. Hollowed out and devastated. I have to say there have been a few days in my life when I felt picked up and thrown down, like a lady wrestler whose opponent got the better of her. Slammed against the ropes and it felt intentional. Like God was mad at me. For no good reason.
That's pretty much what this psalmist is describing. But...then He remembers his God. The One Who is forever. Never withers. Takes up all space and time. And Who has a plan. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal (2 Corinthians 4). Life on earth isn't eternal. Thank God. It's an adventure. A traveling through. A maze, the solving of which ends up in eternal life. So, yes, there is some picking up and throwing down that comes our way. No straight lines. Earlier in 2 Corinthians, Paul described what his suffering was. For we don't want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we suffered in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God Who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us again. On Him we have set our hope that He will deliver us again. Taking up space. Almost out of hope. Beyond their strength to bear. But God...
Our God has a plan for us and for the universe. Both intentional and particular. Though life seems random and arbitrary sometimes. It's not. I have a place in the larger picture. It's tiny, but it's important to God. Important enough to Him that He stepped into my shoes in order for me to fulfill His will here on planet Earth. My God hears the cries of the afflicted. You have kept count of my tossings, put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book? (Psalm 56). It's easy to take life personally when we are thrown down. It's easy to think we've done something to deserve the wrath of God in our lives. My mother died of cancer. A well meaning Christian in our family told her she had cancer because of unforgiveness in her life. Mother struggled with those words. Because cancer is ugly and fierce and feels like a punishment. I've also had two dear friends struggle to the end with this treacherous disease. Part of their struggle shouldn't have been over what they did to deserve it. But it was. Because it feels like being thrown down by God. But you know what? They are with Him now forever. The maze completed for them as they took the victory lap and wound up home. Which is our goal and God's for us. We get home somehow. Once here, death is our final enemy. Defeated by a suffering Jesus Who knows what it's like to be tossed up and thrown down, yet He understood it was for a greater glory. Not because He was as sinner, but because we are.
Life will finally end and we'll be in Zion. The heavenly Jerusalem. With Jesus. No longer imagining His glory, but participating in it. No longer finite but eternal. No more agony. No more tears. The book is closed on our suffering there. Yet each tear, each day of stretching just beyond what we can bear, has been written there. God's journal of my life. His record of my path as I breathed through the pain and believed in His goodness, or withered in a heap and cried in my drink. All there. Because my God hears the cries of my affliction and answers them. The Father knows my purposes and how I fit into the larger picture of His designs for Earth. When I remember He is good and just, I can lift my head in a storm and know there is purpose--possibly great purpose--in the shifting winds.
Ever feel like you're just taking up space in this world. That, like the evening shadow, you're fading quickly. Or your place in life is like a patch of dead grass in the midst of all that green? No appetite. Many tears. Hollowed out and devastated. I have to say there have been a few days in my life when I felt picked up and thrown down, like a lady wrestler whose opponent got the better of her. Slammed against the ropes and it felt intentional. Like God was mad at me. For no good reason.
That's pretty much what this psalmist is describing. But...then He remembers his God. The One Who is forever. Never withers. Takes up all space and time. And Who has a plan. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal (2 Corinthians 4). Life on earth isn't eternal. Thank God. It's an adventure. A traveling through. A maze, the solving of which ends up in eternal life. So, yes, there is some picking up and throwing down that comes our way. No straight lines. Earlier in 2 Corinthians, Paul described what his suffering was. For we don't want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we suffered in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God Who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us again. On Him we have set our hope that He will deliver us again. Taking up space. Almost out of hope. Beyond their strength to bear. But God...
Our God has a plan for us and for the universe. Both intentional and particular. Though life seems random and arbitrary sometimes. It's not. I have a place in the larger picture. It's tiny, but it's important to God. Important enough to Him that He stepped into my shoes in order for me to fulfill His will here on planet Earth. My God hears the cries of the afflicted. You have kept count of my tossings, put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book? (Psalm 56). It's easy to take life personally when we are thrown down. It's easy to think we've done something to deserve the wrath of God in our lives. My mother died of cancer. A well meaning Christian in our family told her she had cancer because of unforgiveness in her life. Mother struggled with those words. Because cancer is ugly and fierce and feels like a punishment. I've also had two dear friends struggle to the end with this treacherous disease. Part of their struggle shouldn't have been over what they did to deserve it. But it was. Because it feels like being thrown down by God. But you know what? They are with Him now forever. The maze completed for them as they took the victory lap and wound up home. Which is our goal and God's for us. We get home somehow. Once here, death is our final enemy. Defeated by a suffering Jesus Who knows what it's like to be tossed up and thrown down, yet He understood it was for a greater glory. Not because He was as sinner, but because we are.
Life will finally end and we'll be in Zion. The heavenly Jerusalem. With Jesus. No longer imagining His glory, but participating in it. No longer finite but eternal. No more agony. No more tears. The book is closed on our suffering there. Yet each tear, each day of stretching just beyond what we can bear, has been written there. God's journal of my life. His record of my path as I breathed through the pain and believed in His goodness, or withered in a heap and cried in my drink. All there. Because my God hears the cries of my affliction and answers them. The Father knows my purposes and how I fit into the larger picture of His designs for Earth. When I remember He is good and just, I can lift my head in a storm and know there is purpose--possibly great purpose--in the shifting winds.
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