1 How long, O LORD ? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and every day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?
3 Look on me and answer, O LORD my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;
4 my enemy will say, "I have overcome him,"
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.
5 But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
6 I will sing to the LORD,
for he has been good to me.
As I read this psalm, I can really identify with the psalmist's feelings of despair, as mentioned in verses 1 to 4. That there are times I feel so distant from God. And my heart is so heavy that I think it can literally just drop onto the ground. Other times will be when my mind is filled with negative thoughts and the feelings of sorrow inside me is simply overwhelming.To summarize, I don't know how to go on.
To be honest, even now, though it is the Year of Sabbath, I feel like I'm carrying so many bags of potatoes (as Pastor Julie put it). I'm weighed down by many different responsibilites. Sometimes, I don't even know where to start.
Yes, I'm desperate, just like David, who wrote Psalm 13.
Yet, God is gracious. Verses 5 and 6 hold the keys to lift me out of my despair. And these two verses summarize one of the key focus of FCBC this year:
Remembrance and Reliance on the Lord.
Remember the cross, whereby Jesus died for me so that I may have abundant life.
Remember the blessings that God has given me in the past.
Remembering the Lord in 2007
1. I completed NIE and became a full-fledge teacher.
2. I was posted to RI (as I asked for).
3. My grandfather received Christ before he passed away.
4. Dawn & I have started MPC.
Thank You, Lord!
Things to ponder
1. Out of a scale of 1 to 10 (10 means great!), how has 2008 started out for you? Why?
2. For the year 2007, what are 3 things that you can give thanks for? List them out.
3. Pray and praise God for the blessings He has given you in 2007. Always remember them, especially when you go through hardships in 2008.
Dear Lord Jesus, thank You for the cross. Upon the cross, You have given me salvation. Upon the cross, You have lifted me up from my despair. Upon the cross, You have given me blessings upon blessings. Today, Lord, I make a commitment before You. I nail every burden and responsibility to the cross. Take complete control. I thank You once again, in Your name I pray. Amen!
Pastor YC's Reflection on Psalm 13
4 comments:
It's the 13th day of our journey on Psalm and it has been a rather meaningful one to me. After reading Psalm 13, it really answered my doubts that I had about why God does not reveal his physical self and why does he inflict all the pains and hardship we suffer on Earth. The bible reference just to the verse brought me to another verse whereby Job questions in Job 13:24 , "Why do you hide your face and consider me your enemy?" As we all know, Job was a man of great probity, virtue, and piety. He was a righteous man -- burning sacrifices for the sins of his sons; and was also wealthy. However, Job was "robbed" away of his possessions, wealth and family. Even though, he continued to praise God as he is convinced that he was innocent and that his suffering could not replace the sins he did and hence believed that there was no reason why God should make him suffer. Thus, he refuses to curse God, unlike 1 of his wives - Sitis who later died because she cursed. This life experience by Job has rang a bell in my head that we shouldn't be complaining about the small things in life that we hate. Job is a very good example for us -- he did not curse God even though he was inflicted with suffering.
The following parts of Psalm 13 reads that David(the author of the poem) is in a distressed mood because he wants to win his enemies. Despite that, like Job, he still trusts in his unfailing love and rejoices in his salvation even though he might not be able to "win" over his enemies. Like Job, he believed that God did not punish him and that he was good to him.
Psalm 13 suggests that even at the darkest moments or times where things go wrong, we should still rejoice in the Lord, for he was and will be good to us.
Woops. I forgot to see the "pondering section". Haha. Darren asked me to write down my reflections for Psalm 13 and I dumbly wrote all of that >"<
1. Out of a scale of 1 to 10 (10 means great!), how has 2008 started out for you? Why?
- I'll give it a 5, obviously if school was counted to be a good thing, it would be 10, but nevertheless, I would say 5 because... I had to sit near the back of the class (I prefer sitting in the front ... with the laptops at their desks, they don't even bother walking around the class to monitor the back of the class). Hmm, the teachers are okay... I wouldn't say I love some teacher and hate another (I'm not so biased). Some dislikes would include the new scholars... they're like super-duper hardworking. Even though their "England" is not very "powderfull", they spend like every free period using their electronic dictionaries, busily tapping it till they finish writing down the explanations of each word and then rewriting again... They don't socialise and they stick together with their other Chinese friends. They don't understand what I'm talking too... The Indonesians were okay~ They taught me Malay, and I caught no "
balls". Lastly, I don't think I'm gonna do well in class, those hardworking scholars are like intelligent people yet to be discovered...
2. For the year 2007, what are 3 things that you can give thanks for? List them out.
- Thank God that I got good results for my examinations
- Thank God for a wonderful cell-leader this year - Darren.
- Thank God for Shaun and Gabriel for entering my cell group :)
3. Pray and praise God for the blessings He has given you in 2007. Always remember them, especially when you go through hardships in 2008.
Dear Father-in-Heaven, thank You for dying for us on the cross. Your death has brought us salvation and my heart will rejoice you for that. Thanks for remembering me even when I forget you at times when I get carried away with work. You are the one who gives me the strength to do the things daily but yet I forget to pray to receive it. I commit my life to you and I thank you so much for dying for us. In Jesus' precious name we pray, Amen.
Argh... many grammatical errors, my sister is booming her voice about I Am Legend to my whole family. Irritating. One thing, I wanted to write something about it. Like David, he believed that God did not cause the whole world to die out, but it was us, homo sapiens who killed our ownselves.
We are in a world of darkness, and God being God, is light.
When light meets darkness, darkness leaves.Put your life to the light and let the darkness of the world leave you.Wrestle with your evil thoughts and fight temptation,like Jesus.Do not have sorrow in your heart but always be rejoicing.Trust in God's unfailing love and your faith will bless you.
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