Potentia Deo ad Destructionem

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation! by Resequitur

42:1 As the deer pants  for the water brooks, So my soul pants for You, O God.

42:2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When shall I come and appear before God?

42:3 My tears have been my food day and night, While {they} say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”

42:4 These things I remember and I pour out my soul within me. For I used to go along with the throng {and} lead  them in procession to the house of God, With the voice of joy  and thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.

42:5 Why are you in despair, O my soul? And {why} have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him {For} the help of His presence.

42:6 O my God, my soul is in despair within me; Therefore I remember You from the land of the Jordan And the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.

42:7 Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls; All Your breakers  and Your waves have rolled over me.

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.

42:9 I will say to God my rock, “Why have You forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”

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

42:11 Why are you in  despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, The help  of my countenance and my God.

As the year is coming to a close my mind shifts back to a year ago when My soul and I could together rejoice and sing ” I am truly blessed by God!”. Many things were going my way in life. After what seemed like a short stream of awesome blessings , The Lord took those things away from me, leaving me to feel as though I had been awoken from the climax of an amazing dream. All of what he had blessed me with at that point..gone. Vanished into thin air. I felt pain. I felt betrayed. Though in hindsight I look back an know it needed to happen.

Throughout this year, God has given me the grace to lay my hope and trust in Him. This Psalm comforts me in the sense that in this suffering, I am not alone. I am not alone in my emotions. There are times where I feel God has abandoned me. There are times where I feel as though my enemies are surrounding me and mocking me, and asking “Where is your God? “.  Amidst this pain, I know He is there. I know because His breakers and His waves are going over me. Though they are painful, I know it is for my sanctification. But I continually call out to Him and it is though He has forgotten me. As I take another look at the Psalm, I notice something the Psalmist does. He talks to himself!  “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,my salvation” . The most influential voice in our lives is our own voice. We are constantly talking to ourselves. My own voice had been leading me to the conclusion that “the temporary blessing from God was supposed to be forever! But God doesn’t want me to be happy!  He has forgotten me!”. Over and Over the voice in my head has the microphone and it is not speaking from the truth of God. But we are to talk to our souls. Preach our Souls the Gospel. Say to our souls by God’s grace “Soul! Do you not remember that you have been called by God! You have been Foreknown!!  You were called out of the deadness of your sins, and given to The Son of God! You have been Justified, you are being conformed to Christ’s image! You will be Glorified! Do you think that God is just going to leave you to die?!  Again I ask you this question: Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?, and then I say to you : Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation!”

It is by God’s grace that we can do these things. Though I may think that God has forgotten me, I know that He has not. These trials were foreordained beforehand for my sanctification. The Lord is preparing for me a blessing. The Storm cloud is darkest right before it is about to break with rain. And O, The rain is so much more enjoyable after the drought! Though now I may yearn for God, and think that He has forgotten, I will again praise Him, my salvation!

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