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Looking to the Past

Read

(A psalm by Asaph for Jeduthun, the music leader.)

In Times of Trouble God Is with His People

1I pray to you, Lord God,

and I beg you to listen.

2In days filled with trouble,

I search for you.

And at night I tirelessly

lift my hands in prayer,

refusing comfort.

3When I think of you,

I feel restless and weak.

4Because of you, Lord God,

I can't sleep.

I am restless

and can't even talk.

5I think of times gone by,

of those years long ago.

6Each night my mind

is flooded with questions:

7“Have you rejected me forever?

Won't you be kind again?

8Is this the end of your love

and your promises?

9Have you forgotten

how to have pity?

Do you refuse to show mercy

because of your anger?”

10Then I said, “God Most High,

what hurts me most

is that you no longer help us

with your mighty arm.”

11Our Lord, I will remember

the things you have done,

your miracles of long ago.

12I will think about each one

of your mighty deeds.

13Everything you do is right,

and no other god

compares with you.

14You alone work miracles,

and you have let nations

see your mighty power.

15With your own arm you rescued

your people, the descendants

of Jacob and Joseph.

16The ocean looked at you, God,

and it trembled deep down

with fear.

17Water flowed from the clouds.

Thunder was heard above

as your arrows of lightning

flashed about.

18Your thunder roared

like chariot wheels.

The world was made bright

by lightning,

and all the earth trembled.

19You walked through the water

of the mighty sea,

but your footprints

were never seen.

20You guided your people

like a flock of sheep,

and you chose Moses and Aaron

to be their leaders.

Contemporary English Version, Second Edition (CEV®) © 2006 American Bible Society. All rights reserved.
See this passage in other languages or Bible versions

Reflect

A sleepless night, and the psalmist blames God. After all, God had promised his people that he would be kind, loving, and merciful to them, but trouble has come into his life anyway. The psalmist, though disappointed in God, nonetheless still turns to God in his present difficulties and boldly calls him to account through a series of challenging questions (vv 7-9).

Psalm 77 is a lament, a prayer directed to God when life is hard. Most laments, like this one, end with praise or confidence, but most of the time they do not give any explanation for why they turn from sadness to joy. Psalm 77 is different. The psalmist turns to the past (God’s “mighty deeds,” v 12) in order to gain confidence for the present and hope for the future. In particular, the psalmist remembers the crossing of the Red Sea (vv 16-20). He thinks his situation is helpless, but then he remembers that his people were helpless as Pharaoh’s chariots raced toward them with an impassable sea behind them. As God opened up the sea to let the Israelites escape, so he can rescue the psalmist from his trouble.

Christians have an advantage even over the psalmist. After all, we have the greatest of God’s mighty acts to remember, namely the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed, the Gospels go to great lengths to point out that Jesus is the greater reality anticipated by the Exodus. After all, his ministry was patterned on the events of the Exodus and wilderness wandering (baptism [Matt. 3:13-17, see 1 Cor. 10:1-2]; forty days and nights in the wilderness [Matt. 4:1-11], talking about the law on a mountain [Matt. 5-7]), and dying on the eve of the Passover, the celebration of the Exodus). Jesus is our “Passover Lamb” (2 Cor. 5:7). When we experience trouble, we turn to the past, the cross, in order to find confidence and hope.

Respond

O Christ, our Passover lamb, we look to the cross and your great victory over death in the resurrection to find our confidence and hope in a difficult world. We thank you Lord that you offered your life on our behalf that we might live, both now and forever. Amen.

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Tremper Longman III

Dr. Tremper Longman III (B.A. Ohio Wesleyan University; M.Div. Westminster Theological Seminary; M.Phil. and Ph.D. Yale University) is Distinguished Scholar and Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies at Westmont College. He has written over 30 books which have been translated into seventeen different languages. In addition, as a Hebrew scholar, he is one of the main translators of the popular New Living Translation of the Bible. His most recent book is How to Read Daniel. Tremper and Alice currently reside in Alexandria, VA and have three sons (Tremper IV, Timothy, Andrew) and four granddaughters (Gabrielle, Mia, Ava, and Emerson). For exercise, he enjoys playing squash.

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trouble, the cross, lament, Exodus


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