This morning one of the passages I read for my devotional reading was the 44th Psalm. It is an interesting Psalm and one that struck me as a History teacher and as a generally nostalgic person as one that I really need to apply. The Psalm begins: We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what work thou didst in their days, in the times of old. It recounts the history of God’s people and the great works He did for them.
By the end, however, the Psalmist is telling a different story in verses. He is reacting to the absence of God in a very dark present:
Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.
Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? arise, cast us not off for ever.
Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and forgettest our affliction and our oppression?
For our soul is bowed down to the dust: our belly cleaveth unto the earth.
Arise for our help, and redeem us for thy mercies' sake.
He has heard from his fathers about God work in olden times, but today he sees oppression and injustice. Too often I am content with stories of God’s work. This cannot, however, be enough for us. We need God to hear and work in our land today. We must not disengage (how tempting is that for all of us); we must not narrow our focus; we must not live in the past. We must plead for God’s power and glory to be manifest today in our world.
