“O LORD, why do you cast me off? Why do you hide your face from me? Wretched and close to death from my youth up, I suffer your terrors; I am desperate” (Psalm 88:14-15)

Good news! You don’t have to always be okay. You don’t have to pretend that everything is fine when they’re not fine.

The verses for today don’t read like good news at first. But if you’ve ever been down, hurt, disappointed, depressed these are words of reality.

The Book of Psalms are the prayer book for the people of faith. In this book you will find prayers of praise and thanksgiving. But did you know that a third of the psalms are psalms of lament and complaint? A whopping third!!! That’s 50 out of the 150 psalms.

That’s one of the reasons why the Psalms are so beloved by the saints. When life hits us hard and we are down, when life hurts so much there aren’t even words to pray, it’s the psalms that gives us the language of prayer when we’ve run out of words.

This season we’re currently in hasn’t been easy. And for some, it’s been really tough.

Did you know God already knows how you feel? You don’t have to pretend that you’re doing okay. God’s big enough to handle our complaints and laments.

Here’s the reasons why:

• First, the mere act of complaining and lamenting is healthy. It’s bottling up our feelings that leads to disease of the soul and bodies.
• Secondly, and most importantly, after complaining and lamenting, after the venting and screaming, we have to find a way to move on. We can’t stay at complaining and lamenting. We have to eventually move on.

How does the psalmist move on? Every single psalm of lament ends with confession of faith and trust in God’s deliverance with the exception of Psalm 88 (the reason why Psalm 88 doesn’t end with a confession of faith and trust is a topic for another blog).

Good news! God can handle our complaints and whining. So, go ahead. Really. It’s good to get things off your chest to God. And after complaining, God will help you to find a way to move on to praise and thanksgiving.

 

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me” (John 14:1)

Jesus spoke these words to his disciples on the night of the Passover before he was crucified. He wanted to prepare his disciples for what they were going to face in the coming days.

One of the biggest fears of all human beings is death. Death has always been final. Death is inescapable. There is no way to cheat the inevitability of death.

It is in the face of Jesus’ impending death that Jesus speaks these words to his disciples. He tells them that death is not the end. In fact, he is going to prepare a place for the disciples and that he will come again one day to take his them home.

Here is the amazing thing about this passage. Jesus makes the claim that even in death we are not alone. He is present with us, preparing a place for us. He is there to lead us to the place prepared for us.

Friends, whatever it is you are going through today Jesus reminds you, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.” Because you see, there is never a there where God is not there. 

Listen to that again: there is never a there where God is not there.

No matter what you are facing, God is with you. God is guiding you. God is leading you. You are never alone.

There.

“I waited patiently for the LORD; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure” (Psalm 40:1-2)

Joyce was born into this world in a way that no human being ever deserves to be born. Life dealt her a crushing blow even before her tiny life could begin.

There are many ways in which children end up at New Hope Uganda, a children’s center in Uganda for orphans and the unwanted children. The stories of how each of the children arrive in New Hope is unimaginable and gut wrenching. But I had never heard of anything like what Joyce endured.

Joyce was born in a place that no baby is ever supposed to be born. She was ushered into this world in an outhouse. Her mom went into the outhouse to give birth to Joyce with every intention to end the life of her baby even before it could start.

After giving birth to Joyce in that outhouse, Joyce’s mom stuffed her tiny new born down a filthy, slimy hole. Joyce fell about thirty feet into the muck and the filth of that pit latrine. How she survived that terrible fall, only God knows. Had Joyce landed face first, she would have suffocated in that filth. Somehow she managed to land on her back only to sink into the depths of that unspeakable filth all the while her newly severed umbilical cord began absorbing all that nastiness the pit latrine could throw at her. There, in that slimy pit, Joyce was abandoned to die. Alone.

No one deserves to die that way.

But God had other plans for baby Joyce. God was determined to use her life to impact the world for good. God created her for a purpose. There was a destiny for her to fulfill.

No one knows how long Joyce was in that filth. A woman heard a baby crying and to her horror saw a baby down in that slimy pit. Joyce was rescued and rushed to a hospital where they began pumping her tiny body with antibiotics. No one gave her a chance.

But to everyone’s surprise, Joyce began recovering and a few days later was brought to New Hope. New Hope is the place where the hopeless are given hope. Just like that, she had been plucked from filth and death and given a new life. She now belongs in a family who loves her and cherishes her.

Joyce’s story is the story of every one of us. We too were plucked from the slimy pit of darkness and, just like that, made children of the living God. We went from slowly dying in the filth of sin, and just like that, we have been given new life and a grand purpose, all because of Jesus Christ. God has a plan and a purpose for each and every one of us.

God loves you. You are here for a reason. You are here to tell of God’s wonderful story of salvation, particularly during these days of the pandemic.