Today is January 30th.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

Take a moment and quiet yourself. Take a deep breath. Welcome God’s presence. And say, “Come Holy Spirit.”

Today’s reading is Psalm 43.

Vindicate me, my God, and plead my cause against an unfaithful nation. Rescue me from those who are deceitful and wicked. You are God my stronghold. Why have you rejected me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy? Send me your light and your faithful care, let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell. Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight. I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God. Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

The writer is moving between hope and anxiety, faith and doubt, in this psalm. He asks God to vindicate and rescue him from his enemies. In both this Psalm, and the one right before it, the writer is describing a sort of spiritual depression: the sense that God is far off. How do you feel, knowing that even the writer of this Psalm experienced the feeling of being rejected by God?

Does that knowledge feel like a consolation or desolation for you? As you hear the passage read again, pray along with the psalmist.

Can you make verse three of this psalm a prayer for yourself today? Send me your light and your faithful care, let them lead me. Do you know someone in a time of spiritual depression who might be encouraged by this passage? Who might need the faithful care of God? Pray for them today as well.

Lord God, Almighty and everlasting Father, you have brought me in safety to this new day: Preserve me with your mighty power, that I may not fall into sin, nor be overcome by adversity; and in all I do, direct me to the fulfilling of your purpose; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Music: You Don't Have To Lose Heart - Vineyard Worship, Joshua Miller - (YouTube)