The Path to Thanksgiving Goes Through Suffering

FE 9-18-22 | Wetterlin

The Heart of Thanksgiving

The Path to Thanksgiving Goes Through Suffering | Psalm 42-43

INTRODUCTION:

This morning we are continuing our study in the book of psalms. Our goal for spending a number of weeks in the psalms has been to cultivate a heart of thanksgiving.

Pastor Aucoin kicked off the series with Psalm 19, which points us to the “speech” of creation that declares “day unto day” about the glory of God...which should cause thanksgiving. Psalm 19 goes further than creation by pointing us to his special “speech”, his special revelation given to us in the Word of God—the Bible—which the psalmist describes as Psalm 19:10 They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. That should certainly produce thanksgiving in God’s people!

Then last week Pastor Viars taught on Psalm 91 and the amazing promise and truth of God being our refuge and our fortress. In a world full of danger, a world that hates the Lord and his people with an adversary—the devil—prowling around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour—it’s a really good thing we have a refuge and fortress in our God! That should produce a heart of thanksgiving in God’s people!

Well this morning somewhat like we saw last week—in that security comes in the midst of really “insecure” and dangerous situations—we’re going to see this week that The Path to Thanksgiving Goes Through Suffering.

Our text this morning is in Psalm 42–43. So please turn in your bibles to Psalm 42.

• - We are taking Psalm 42 and 43 together for a couple of reasons...

Reasons for reading Psalm 42 and 43 together

1. Psalm 42 and 43 share a few common refrains that tie these Psalms together very tightly (42:5, 11, 43:5) (42:9a, 43:2b) (42:9b, 43:2c). It seems as if they may have been written together, and that is how we are going to read it this morning.

1. Psalm 43 has no heading, which makes it only 1 of 2 psalms without a heading in book 2 of Psalms.

1. If you look at Psalm 42 you’ll see the English heading of “Thirsting for God in Trouble and Exile” and then underneath that you’ll see the Hebrew heading of “For the choir director. A Maskil of the sons of Korah.”

1. If you look at Psalm 43, you’ll see the English heading “Prayer for Deliverance”, but there is no Hebrew heading.

1. In book 2 in the Psalms, this is only 1 of 2 psalms without a heading. Psalm 71 is the other one.

For these reasons, we will be taking them as one psalm.

https://www.pinterest.com/nikkepooh/as-the-deer-panteth/

https://www.hotelrajpalacedibrugarh.com/as-the-deer-pants-for-the-water

Psalm 42:1, is one of the most popular verses in all of the bible. It’s been a favorite of painters and verse art people...not sure what their actually title is...so verse art with have to do!

Psalm 42:1 is kind of like Joshua 24:15 which says, “But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” If you try and buy a stencil, sticky, sticker verse for your wall you’ll find 10,000 different fonts of Joshua 24:15 and then like 3 other verses in the bible.

Psalm 42:1 is as prolific in the “verse art.” Surely you’ve seen pictures like these...

• - In fact, as I was googling for “Psalm 42:1 paintings”, I remembered that my parents still have a Psalm 42:1 painting over their fireplace of a deer next to a very scenic beautiful stream.

Now, the reason I show you these pictures...and as you can probably tell, the reason I’m poking fun at them a little bit, is because as we get into the actual text you might actually get a very different picture in your head than what these artists are capturing...

These artists capturing beautiful, scenic landscapes, with streams and lakes where water is plentiful! That doesn’t seem to be the image that the Psalmist has in mind!

The word for ‘pant’ in v.1 is a word that only shows up 3 times in the Old Testament, and two of them are in v.1 of Psalm 42! The other use of the word pant shows up in Joel 1:20 which says, Joel 1:20 Even the beasts of the field pant for You; For the water brooks are dried up And fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

The picture there isn’t of a deer that sprints away like it’s being hunted only to be thirsty afterwards and so it guzzles down some water and is refreshed. Rather, the picture is of a land that is in a complete drought and so the beasts of the field are slowly dying of dehydration.

As one commentator put it: “...the psalmist seems to have had in mind the slower agony of drought...” Derek Kidner, Psalms 1–72: An Introduction and Commentary (vol. 15; Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973), 183.

If you have a painting of Psalm 42:1 in your house I’m not trying to bind your conscience such that you’d go home and throw it out. But I do hope that you’ll see Psalm 42:1 for what it truly is communicating.

Now follow along with me as I read Psalm 42 and 43.

With the time we have remaining, we’re going to be looking at 2 keys for drawing near to God in times of adversity

And there are a lot of reasons to draw near to God in times of adversity, but the specific angle we’re thinking about, is how the path to thanksgiving goes through suffering and adversity IF we allow adversity to cause us to draw near to the Lord.

So the first key to draw near to God in adversity is to address your struggles honestly.

I. Address Your Struggles Honestly

I hope that in your personal study of Scripture that you find yourself in the book of Psalms often if not daily. Psalms has been described in different ways like, the prayer book of the Bible or the hymnal of the Bible—and rightfully so.

• Here’s a question I’d encourage you to ask yourself as you’re reading the Psalms: “Do I have the vocabulary of the Psalms?” Or another way to ask the same question would be, “Do I speak/pray like the psalmists do?”

Here’s why I think that’s a very good question, the psalmists use very emotive words, and imagery, and metaphors to describe God, themselves and the world they are living in. Like the Psalmist in 42 and 43, the psalmists are quite honest. You could say there is a depth of honesty that only comes from consistently and thoughtfully thinking about the Lord and the situations they find themselves in.

If you’re someone who loves music you can probably name your favorite bands and your favorites songs and then probably even rehearse those lyrics without even thinking. And that makes sense if you love music.

If the Psalms are like the hymnbook of the Bible—the songbook of God’s people—are those lyrics that are readily available to you to help you through the day? Many people turn to music throughout their day to help them get through, and they turn to different kinds of music based on the mood. The Psalms are similar...there is a track and song to help you no matter the scenario. Do the Psalms find themselves on your daily playlist?

I think if we’re honest, there is language in the Psalms that probably makes all of us a little uncomfortable. I’m not saying the same things make us all uncomfortable, but there are certainly things in the Psalms that if we think carefully about them, and then think about putting those words in our own mouths to describe our own situation...I think we might be hesitant.

• And I’m not sure our hesitation is because of great love for the Lord...it might actually be, because we aren’t as secure and trusting in our relationship with the Lord as we might think.

One commentator said this of Psalm 42:

Before men, he [the psalmist] is vulnerable because he has declared his faith; he can be ridiculed when God’s ways become inscrutable [impossible to understand]. Inwardly he is vulnerable because his thirst is for God; he will not settle for less: ...This ‘stricken deer’ is no camel, desert-dwelling and self-sufficient. He has chosen the blessedness of those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, not the deceptive ease of ‘you that are full now’. Derek Kidner, Psalms 1–72: An Introduction and Commentary (vol. 15; Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973), 183.

You see, some of us might be rather uncomfortable with the honesty of the Psalmist because his honesty makes him vulnerable. As independent, proud Americans we don’t want to be utterly dependent on God or anyone. We want to be the camel, desert-dweller that IS self-sufficient.

• We don’t want to hunger and thirst as Jesus tells us in the beatitudes.

So the Psalms as a whole push us to address our problems honestly. We see in Psalm 42 and 43 that we should address our problems honestly with the Lord first and foremost.

A. With God (42:2b, 9b, 43:2b)

Psalm 42:2b - When shall I come and appear before God?

Some of the psalms give specific settings such that we know and can pinpoint the occasion of the psalm. For example, Psalm 51 which has the heading of “For the choir director. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came to him after ha had gone into Bathsheba.” So there is no question about what brought about Psalm 51.

Other Psalms, like Psalm 42 and 43 are more ambiguous. There are hints that could point to certain kinds of occasions for the psalm to be written, but we cannot be dogmatic about it. And in many cases I believe that ambiguity is intended so that the Psalm can be rightly applied to broader life situations and experiences.

Psalm 42:2b gives us a clue as to the occasion of the Psalm...

• it might be a psalm written during the Babylonian exile after the temple was destroyed and they are removed from the land.

• It could also be an occasion where the psalmist is cut off from Jerusalem while the temple is still functioning.

• Perhaps like when David was on the run from Saul and certainly couldn’t be going to the tabernacle then.

Regardless of the exact occasion, what seems to be clear is that the Psalmist isn’t able to go before the Lord in the temple and he I asking the Lord how much longer it will be before he can go before the Lord?

• This is somewhat like the child on a road trip asking, “How much longer?” But unlike the typical, annoying self-centered nature of that question...this is a person who is longing to be with the Lord and thirsting after God as the beginning of v.2 says.

Not being able to go to the temple, along with taunts from enemies and adversaries have led him to feel forgotten and rejected...

Psalm 42:9b - Why have You forgotten me?

Psalm 43:2b – Why have you rejected me?

These are probably questions that you might be skittish asking of God...can a Christian say that? Can a Christian feel forgotten? Well maybe...But what about rejected? Surely, not!

• Well, I think that the nature of this Psalm would lead us to believe that the experience of being forgotten, and even worse than forgotten—being rejected—is an experience of a genuine child of God at times.

This doesn’t mean that God actually had forgotten or rejected the psalmist. The psalmist is instead communicating honestly with the Lord about what feels like.

Pastor Viars in his sermon last week on Psalm 91 mentioned that a key question for us is, “How do we live between the receipt of God’s promise and the ultimate fulfillment of it?”

• Well, one of the answers is that God wants us to honestly speak with him about the struggle. And honesty as we see here doesn’t sugar coat our felt experience.

These 2 psalms are lament psalms. And Todd Billings said about Lament...

“Writers of laments and complaints in the psalms often seek to make their ‘case’ against God, frequently citing God’s promises in order to complain that God seems to be forgetting his promises. They throw the promises of God back at him.” - Todd Billings, Rejoicing in Lament: Wrestling with Incurable Cancer and Life in Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2015), 19.

Ask yourself, do you have the kind of honest faith that will throw the promises of God back at him? Not in an angry, God has committed injustice kind of way. But in a way that is grappling for understanding a world of suffering and tragedy against the backdrop of God’s perfect and good character?

I hope so. If not I would encourage you to pick up a book that will help you with honest lament and suffering. Here are 3 books I’d highly recommend if this is something you need more help with.

Vroegop, Mark. Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2019.

Keller, Timothy J. Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering. New York, NY: Dutton Books, 2013.

Carson, D. A. How Long, O Lord?: Reflections on Suffering and Evil. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006.

If we’re honest with the Lord, then that must spill over into honest conversations with ourselves.

B. With yourself (42:5, 11, 43:5)

We don’t have time to unpack this, but I at least want to say that there is a difference between praying to God and just talking to yourself. Don’t confuse the two.

Both are good and have their place. The Psalmist laments to the Lord as well as speaks to himself.

The 3-fold refrain in v.5, 11 and 43:5 that these psalms are famous for is “Why are you despair, O my soul, and why have you become disturbed within me?”

• These questions are honest self-reflection questions.

• These are questions that cut through the deceptive, cheap, surface level alternatives to genuine honesty.

• The two ditches of self-deceit that try and make sense of a world full of suffering are

• denial—the attitude and mentality that this world really isn’t so bad, and

• bitterness or resentment—which is the attitude that this world is cruel, nasty and pointless.

In the DA Carson book I recommended he says, “The truth of the matter is that all we have to do is live long enough, and we will suffer.”- Carson, D.A. How Long, O Lord?: Reflections on Suffering and Evil (p. 16). Baker Publishing Group.

That is certainly the truth...and I remember hearing in high school a Thomas Hobbes quote where he said that “Life is short, nasty and brutish.” I literally remember thinking to myself...that guy is just a downer. Life isn’t so bad!

At that point in my life, I hadn’t lived long enough, according to D.A Carson. If we live long enough serious suffering will hit you personally, or it will hit you through a loved one or close friend.

I hope we don’t take the Thomas Hobbes approach...he would be an example of the bitterness and resentment ditch.

But I also hope we don’t take the denial approach and just try and avoid talking about it or thinking about it.

• The world has a million different options to help you deny the suffering of this world if that’s the self-deceptive path that you want to take.

• But no matter how hard you try to escape reality, that still won’t change reality!

It’s like Proverbs 14:10 which says, “The heart knows its own bitterness...”

No matter how hard you try and deny the pain of suffering, the truth of this sin cursed world will break through, and if we haven’t practiced the discipline of drawing near to the Lord in suffering through honestly addressing our suffering to the Lord and to ourselves, then we’re probably in for a rude awaking.

One such example in scripture of the denial ditch would be in Jeremiah 6:13–15...

¹³ “For from the least of them even to the greatest of them, Everyone is greedy for gain, And from the prophet even to the priest Everyone deals falsely. ¹⁴ “They have healed the brokenness of My people superficially, Saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ But there is no peace. ¹⁵...Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; At the time that I punish them, They shall be cast down,” says the LORD.

In honestly addressing suffering we need to be honest with the Lord, honest with ourselves and also honest with others.

C. With others (42:3, 10)

In one sense the psalmist is extremely forthright with others. Simply by the nature of this being a psalm that is to the “Choirmaster.” This psalm was meant to be used in congregational worship!

This is not the stereotypical church goer who comes to church and puts on a smile and says everything is fine, while things are falling apart and they are barely hanging on by a thread.

• In v.3 he says that “tears have been his food day and night.”

• That’s a lot of tears!

• If you’ve been around serious criers...I’m not talking about the “cute crying” where someone gets like a small streak from a tear that sneaks out of their eye down their cheek while their watching a sappy movie...

• I’m talking about people that sob uncontrollably...the pathetic looking crying...that’s the kind of crying that the psalmist is doing, and he’s admitting vulnerably that other people are really hurting him badly.

Psalm 42:3 - While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”

Psalm 42:10 - As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries revile me, while they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”

So how are you doing with that kind of honesty with others? I think that’s a scary level of honesty that makes us a bit...or maybe even very uncomfortable.

• We grew up with little sayings like, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”

• What’s the point of a saying like that? Isn’t it a cute little rhyme communicating that I’m not actually that vulnerable? And that while others may try and hurt me they actually cannot hurt me? I’m too strong or self-sufficient to be hurt by anyone else.

That is not the psalmist’s attitude...he is sobbing in part because his enemies are taunting him with words...saying, “Where is your God?”

One of C.S. Lewis’ most famous quotes comes from his book The Four Loves and it touches on this issue of vulnerability and being hurt by others...he said...

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” – C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

What Lewis is saying is that if we are genuinely loving others...which is the 2^nd great command. The first is to love the Lord and the 2^nd is to love your neighbor as yourself...

• If we are genuinely loving others, then being hurt by others is an inevitable reality...the reason psalms like this are in the Bible is because God doesn’t want us to deny the suffering or pretend like it doesn’t really bother us.

The Lord has good lessons and a good purpose for us through the suffering if we’ll learn to draw near to him in the midst of it. And if we’re going to draw near to him, then we must be honest with him, ourselves and with others.

So that’s the first key...but being honest isn’t an end in and of itself...we must go further to turn and trust in God with all that we have.

II. Turn and Trust in God with All that You Have

In these psalms we see that the psalmist really is casting all his eggs into one basket...and that basket is that the Lord is going to deliver and help him.

Even though the psalmist feels forgotten, rejected and beaten down by the waves and breakers of the Lord, he clings to the character of God that he knows to be true, despite what his current experience would be telling him.

In v.2 he says he thirsts for God...THE LIVING GOD...so the psalmist knows that God is alive and active despite the silence he is experiencing.

In v.5 he calls God MY SALVATION...the psalmist knows that God does deliver and save and has done that for him, even though he is in need of the Lord now and hasn’t been delivered from the present drought and suffering.

In v.8 he says he’s the God of MY LIFE...like with most of these sayings...the psalmist personally knows the Lord.

In v.9 he calls God MY ROCK...the psalmist knows that God is his anchor even though it feels like he is drowning.

In 43:2 he says he’s the God of MY STRENGTH...he knows that God supplies strength even though he feels exhausted and week.

In 43:4 he calls God MY EXCEEDING JOY...he knows that God is his joy even though now he feels despairing and disturbed.

The point is, turning and trusting in the living, saving, rock, strength and exceeding joy God isn’t a gamble or a baseless hope. Because of the character of God, he truly is the only one worth trusting in with everything that you have.

For believers in Jesus Christ, we have so much more to base our trust in than the psalmist did! We have the cross of Jesus Christ. In the cross we have everything that we need to be absolutely sure that God loves us, and that he is totally trustworthy to do what is absolutely best.

• You see the Jesus Christ’s death made no sense to his followers...his closest disciples were utterly confounded when Jesus plainly told them that he would be betrayed and that the Jews would hand him over to be beaten and crucified but that he would rise again on the third day. They were confounded because they couldn’t conceive of any possibility where the Messiah dying could be glorifying to the Lord, fulfilling prophecy or in anyway good for them.

• But we know on this side of the cross, that Jesus death, burial and resurrection was the most glorifying event in history to the Lord, and it fulfilled many prophecies in breath taking ways, and the cross is the only reason that any human being has any hope for anything good in their life!

The point is, as believers we absolutely should turn and trust in the Lord with everything even in the midst of suffering.

If you’re here this morning and there has never been a definite point in time in your life, when you’ve repented of your sin and trusted in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ as your only hope of salvation, then I would implore you to do that today.

• A phrase that has stuck with me for the past couple months now that I’ve mentioned I think the last 2 times I’ve preached, is “Everyone hates suffering. But very few people hate sin.” Suffering exists because sin exists.

• Suffering is a parable of the wickedness of our sin against God.

• God is angry at sin...rightfully angry at sin.

Psalm 7:11–12 God is a righteous judge, And a God who has indignation every day. ¹² If a man does not repent, He will sharpen His sword; He has bent His bow and made it ready.

For anyone who would choose to repent, God has poured out his indignation on Jesus on the cross, so that instead of God commanding his wrath and anger upon you, you can have Psalm 42:8 The LORD will command His lovingkindness in the daytime; And His song will be with me in the night, A prayer to the God of my life.

Christian friend, we have God’s lovingkindness over us, night and day. What a delight and joy to trust in a God who pours out his lovingkindness day and night over his people.

So, if we are going to trust God with everything we have, in part that means is that in times of suffering we are expectantly hoping in God for renewed future worship of the Lord.

A. Hope in God for future worship (42:5,11,43:5)

The Psalmist expresses his hope in the Lord for future worship three times.

Psalm 42:5 - Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him for the help of His presence.

Psalm 42:11 - Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God.

Psalm 43:5 - Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God.

The word for hope that is used in each of these verses is tightly tied to the concept of ‘waiting.’ That shouldn’t be surprising to us...because hope is always future oriented.

If you’ve ever been in a psalm 42 kind of depression where the first half of v.5,11 and 43:5 resonate with you...the despair and disturbed soul...but instead of having hope like the psalmist is clinging to, you went to the hopeless place of ‘things will never get better and this is how it will be the rest of my life’...

• In that scenario, your view to the future is hopeless...

• In that scenario, you’ve concluded that you know the future and it will not get better...

• If I can be frank, that kind of view to the future is a proud view...you’re claiming to have knowledge that you don’t have and it goes against what Scripture promises about the future for followers of Jesus Christ!

There is no question about it, that all of us could probably give stories about things that we have suffered and lost, and that we’ll never get back in this life. God isn’t a genie in a bottle that promises to give us what we want if we wait on him.

• God instead promises to give us what is best to help us grow to see him as psalm 43:4 says...to see God as “my exceeding joy!”

So our hope and longing in suffering needs to be God oriented...the psalmist is certainly asking for deliverance from his enemies, his adversaries, an ungodly nation and the deceitful, unjust man (43:1). But the psalmists ultimate hope is that the joy of worshipping the Lord will return in the future!

• That’s his hope!

• He is waiting on the Lord as he says in Psalm 43:3–4 O send out Your light and Your truth, let them lead me; Let them bring me to Your holy hill And to Your dwelling places. 4 Then I will go to the altar of God, To God my exceeding joy; And upon the lyre I shall praise You, O God, my God.

If you’re in turmoil right now...I hope you’ll make that you’re prayer. That God will be faithful to give you light and truth to lead to him so that you’ll be able to worship with fullness of soul. He wants the turmoil of life not to lead us to despair and death, but to thanksgiving and life!

• If I can say it this way, the pathway to gospel gratitude goes through the cross...you don’t get the joy and glory of heaven, without first walking the road of calvary with your cross, following our suffering savior.

But unlike Jesus...we are not bearing the cross and suffering alone. The Father’s love was removed from Christ while he suffered in our place and because he endured the rejection of the Father, we know that we can always rely on God’s loyal covenant love.

B. Relying on God’s loyal covenant love (42:8)

Notice the psalmists hope in what the Lord will do...he will command his lovingkindness in the daytime and his song will be there at night.

Psalm 42:8 - The LORD will command His lovingkindness in the daytime; and His song will be with me in the night, a prayer to the God of my life.

The psalmist can have that kind of hope, because that’s who God has revealed himself to be.

Exodus 34:6-7 - Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands…”

I know sometimes it doesn’t feel like it...but that’s who he is.

Malachi 3:6 “For I, the LORD, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.

When God tells us who he is, we can trust him, because he isn’t like us...he isn’t fickle and changing. If God had just one single day were he woke up in a bad mood...just one day of change...we’d all be in serious trouble! But we have an unchanging God, and therefore we can rely on his promised covenant love.

And that’s a lot more than can be said about the world that we live in. In Psalm 43:1 the word translated “ungodly” is literally ‘not lovingkindness.’ Whereas the psalmist can rely on God to command ‘lovingkindness’, he is facing a nation of ‘no lovingkindness.’

Psalm 43:1 - Vindicate me, O God, and plead my case against an ungodly nation; O deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man!

How often are we looking to the world in hope of finding covenant, faithful love...when the only place to look is to the Lord. Not only is he the only place where lovingkindness is truly found, but he has proven his lovingkindness day after day, year after year, century after century and millennium after millennium.

Sadly, we are sinful, forgetful people that turn to rely only on a “no lovingkindness” world to help us. That’s why it’s so important to constantly be rehearsing truth about God.

C. Rehearsing truth about God

The only way to make sure you’re constantly rehearsing truth about God to yourself is if you know the truth of God...

Jesus said of himself in John 14:6 that he is the way, the TRUTH, and the life...if you’re going to rehearse the truth of God to yourself, then you must know Jesus...you need to personally know the truth!

Jesus prayed later in John 17 to the Father, saying, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”

Friends, if you’re going to rehearse the truth of God to yourself, you need to be in his word...you need to be in the Bible every day. His Word is truth!

We live in a world that is constantly making truth claims...everyday.

• Psalm 19 says that creation is literally pouring out truth claims about the existence of God.

• Our world is pouring out truth claims everyday as well that on contrary to what creation is saying.

• Our world is pouring out truth claims everyday to get you to believe that gold and silver and stuff and status is where true joy is found...

Which truth are you going to listen to you? Which truth are you going to rehearse to yourself? Which truth are you going to spend most of your time being discipled by?

• It’s just not possible to sit at the feet of your TV and be discipled by the deceitful truth claims of the world in shows and movies and news and music and be discipled by Jesus who is the TRUTH!

• It’s not possible to have the Spirit of Truth residing in you, and yet love the ways of the world and lies of the world, more than the Truth of Scripture.

Friends, we certainly might be feeling like the Psalmist does...we certainly might be feeling completely parched and exhausted, bored or even despairing like the Psalmist. But I hope like the psalmist we’ll be rehearsing truth about the Lord, rather than the lies of the world.

Friends, this is hard...this isn’t something you can do in your own strength. And I think that’s even part of the lesson that we are supposed to learn in times of intense suffering. God, in his lovingkindness is seeking to help us understand just how much we need.

• He is our life...he is our rock...he is our refuge...he is our strength...he is our exceeding joy!