A Strategy for Living

So here is Asaph in Psalm 77 praying and struggling with darkness and discouragement and with a sense of the distance of God. Verses 7-10 are the essence of the misery:

Will the Lord reject forever? And will He never be favorable again? Has His lovingkindness ceased forever? Has His promise come to an end forever? Has God forgotten to be gracious, Or has He in anger withdrawn His compassion? Then I said, "It is my grief, That the right hand of the Most High has changed."

Now there is a typical struggle in the Christian life. The feeling that God is not favorable. That his lovingkindness has ceased. That his promise is not reliable. That his compassion is rescinded. That he is a fickle God and has changed. I say that is typical struggle. Please hear me: I am calling you to the Word in 2000 not because I believe Christians rise above struggle by the Word, but precisely because we never rise above struggle in this world and because the Word is our only hope to survive and come through our struggles with faith and hope.

So now, what does the psalmist do in this critical time of darkness and discouragement? What is his strategy of life? How does he live his life of struggle? How should we? The answer is in verses 11-12. But before I read them, let's read verses 13-20 so that you can see the effect of this strategy.

Your way, O God, is holy; What god is great like our God? You are the God who works wonders; You have made known Your strength among the peoples. You have by Your power redeemed Your people, The sons of Jacob and Joseph. The waters saw You, O God; The waters saw You, they were in anguish; The deeps also trembled. The clouds poured out water; The skies gave forth a sound; Your arrows flashed here and there. The sound of Your thunder was in the whirlwind; The lightnings lit up the world; The earth trembled and shook. Your way was in the sea And Your paths in the mighty waters, And Your footprints may not be known. You led Your people like a flock By the hand of Moses and Aaron.

What has happened between verses 7-10, when he was so low and uncertain and discouraged, and verses 13-20, which is worship and confidence? Worship has swallowed up his doubt, and boldness in God has swallowed up his fear. What happened? This is what we want to happen when we are in darkness and discouragement and doubt. What was the key?

Now let's read his strategy of life in verses 11-12: "I shall remember the deeds of the LORD; Surely I will remember Your wonders of old. I will meditate on all Your work And muse on Your deeds."

His strategy is remembering, meditating, and musing on the deeds and wonders of God in history. This is what I am calling for in 2000. This is the way to live the Christian life. This is what I mean by living on the Word of God. The deeds of God and his wonders of old are available to our minds one way: by the Word of God. We remember and we meditate and we muse one way: by the Word of God.

Conscious Effort

The central Biblical strategy for coming out of darkness and discouragement and doubt is a conscious effort of the mind. Notice these strong words of intentionality (even stronger in the Hebrew with the second verb in each pair a cohortative): "I shall remember . . . Surely I will remember" (verse 11); "I will meditate . . . and [I will] muse" (verse 12). These are conscious acts that he chooses to do. This is the fight of faith. This is the fight for delight. This is the opposite of passivity and resignation. This is a strategy of life.

All of us have said (or ought to have said) from time to time: "I know God in my head, but I don't feel him in my heart. My knowledge is not rescuing me the way it did the Psalmist." I don't want to minimize physical and traumatic obstacles, but I do want to raise this question - mainly for myself, but for you too: When we say that we know facts about God in our head, but they are not making their way down into our emotions and making any difference the way they seem to for the psalmist, what do we mean by "knowing facts about God"?

Do we mean what the psalmist does by "remembering" and "meditating" and "musing"? I wonder. Take an example. Suppose you are feeling unworthy and unacceptable to God and generally a failure and having little motivation to rise above the sense of despondency. Now, you have lots of knowledge in your head of Christ's great deeds of old. And if someone says to you, "But don't you know that you are justified by faith and God looks on you in Christ as you cast yourself on him for mercy?" you might say, "Yes, I know that in my head, but it isn't having any effect on my feelings."

But is that passive knowing about - or that awareness of - justification what the psalmist means by "remember, meditate, muse"? Could it be that he means something like this? I will call to mind that my Lord Jesus - the kindest, most loving, and utterly sinless man - on a day in history hung on a Roman cross of torture and execution in horrible pain next to a man who had lived a life of sin all his life and was on the brink of eternal dam nation. I will remember the sufferings of what he experienced that day and let them brew in my mind. I will remember that the thief next to him said, for some wonderful and inexplicable reason (for he was cursing at first), "Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!" (Luke 23:42). I will meditate on the grace of God that brought that change of heart. I will muse on how unlikely that was and how hopeless that request was. I will talk to myself about how this man had no time to become good and deserving before he died. I will think about what kind of grace he thought might be available from this dying Christ.

Then I will remember - I will consciously pursue the memory, I will call it up from my memory or I will track it down in the Gospel of Luke - that Jesus said to the thief, "Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43). And I will pause here and muse on this answer a long time. I will not hurry off somewhere to say that such knowledge has no effect on my emotions. I will pause. I will linger and muse and meditate on this. This is a wonder. Here is a dying man declaring a life-long thief accepted and loved and heaven-bound. Here is a grace that sweeps a lifetime of guilt away in an instant. Here is a power that says death can hold neither you nor me. Here is an authority that decides who goes to heaven and who doesn't. Here is an immediacy that says it will happen this very day. No purgatory, no testing, no penance. Just absolute forgiveness and acquittal and cleansing and acceptance. "Your way, O God, is holy; What god is great like our God? You are the God who works wonders" (Psalm 77:13).

How many of us have fought for the joy of faith like that when we complain that we know the facts of God but they hare not having any effect on our feelings?

Make a Plan for the New Year

I am pleading with you to make 2000 a year with a new strategy of living. It is a strategy laid out in Psalm 77:11-12 and many other places. It is a life on the Word of God. Reading the Word and Meditating on the Word and musing on the Word. And to that end, memorizing the Word (the Fighter Verse challenge).

So I call you to do something very specific this afternoon or this evening: plan a place, plan a time, and plan a way to read the Bible every day in 2000. This is the foundation of remembering and meditating and musing. If you don't make a plan, it will not happen. Notice those words of intentionality and purposefulness in verses 11-12, "I will remember . . . I will meditate . . . I will muse." If you will join the psalmist in this purposeful way of living, rather than just drifting and coasting into the new year, then mark off some time today to plan three things:

May the Lord help you to see that this is not marginal. This is not icing on the cake of Christian living. This is the appointed instrument of God by which he sustains and grows the faith and fruit of his children. In the Old Testament and the New Testament, the witness of those who knew it best said it was their delight. Psalm 1:2, "His delight is in the Law of the Lord and on his law he meditates day and night." John 15:11, "These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full." Planning to meditate on these words is the path of joy. This is the fight for delight.

by date
by topic