Mountaintop or Valley
Today’s Reading – Psalms 21 – 25 (Click on the references to listen to the audio – Click here to view the passage from Blue Letter Bible)
(Second Milers also read – James 1 – 5; Psalms 96 – 100; Proverbs 20)
Listen to this morning’s Scripture song – Isaiah 40:31
Read the “0620 Evening and Morning” devotion for today, by the late Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Read a previous post from today’s reading – “Are You Teachable?“
“Thou hast given him his heart’s desire, and hast not withholden the request of his lips. Selah.” (Psalm 21:2)
“O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.” (Psalm 22:2)
Isn’t it interesting the difference between Psalm 21 and Psalm 22. Many of these Psalms are just praises and prayers to God right out of the heart of David. In Psalm 21, everything is great. David is praising the Lord for all of the wonderful things that God has done for him. In Psalm 21, it appears that everything is going great in David’s life.
Now when we get to Psalm 22, it seems like the bottom has fallen out of David’s life. Notice in verse 2, he accuses God of not hearing him. That’s funny because in the first Psalm (22), he said that God gave him the desires of his heart. What happened? Is there some kind of a contradiction here? No. It is just that David, like us, is viewing God through the eyes of his present circumstance. Apparently, his circumstance in Psalm 22 was not as good as Psalm 21. Remember, these Psalms are expressions of the deep feeling coming straight out of David’s heart.
I find that my prayer and praise to God is much the same way. Like David, I too go through different seasons. At times, it feels like nothing is going wrong in life; but at other times it seems as if God is completely absent from my life and the devil is having a “free for all”. Do you ever feel that way? I guess maybe David was just as human as we are. I would like to some day get to the place where my praises to God are consistent regardless of the valley or the mountaintop I may be traveling through.
Posted in Thoughts from Psalms by Phil Erickson with 4 comments.
That’s a great thought about wanting to praise God on the mountain too as well as the valley. I would love to be constant in that as well. I always remember my mom walking around Praising God in both good and bad and I always wondered WHY is she praising him when things aren’t going well. I do know that my mom was a great woman of pray and she always said, that we need to trust God and what he is doing in our lives. She alway had that necklace with the little mustard seed in it .
praise god he is are heavenly father. through good and bad priase him in the morning afternoon evening bedtime give thanks and praise to him
everyday every hour. we love our lord.
Amen Pastor. Thank you for the reminder. There was a time when I was on top of my mountain. I had retired.enjoying the fruits of my labor for the many years that I had worked.After some years of retirement the house was getting to big we decided to move further south to galloway, we had our new retirement house and everything was going well and still on top of the mountain and then everything changed in a moment of time. long story short Jane was diagnosed with brain cancer and then a while later with lymphoma cancer and then she had a brain swelling that was bleeding. The doctor told me it didn’t look good, so I was walking deeper into the valley, she made it through the surgery and brain swelling started to go down and the bleeding stopped while she was home and healing there came a Wednesday night prayer meeting,I was reluctant to go my sister -in -law talked me into going. While I was sitting there Pastor came down to talk to me and had the men come and pray over me, the burden was lifted from my shoulders and I was climbing back up the mountain.like the post
Amen brother Bob Fenton God is saying the Drs need power to fix things that are not going right plan A plan B like my thyroid disorder has taken a turn. Ultra sound at mainland. Then bladder and kidney scan
Then another Scan in Sept. I need the power of God. And God needs to turn this around. Because billy is saying come on des you got this.