In Psalm 44 the psalmist begins with remembrance of all that God has done for the nation. The Psalm quickly turns to feelings of frustration due to a perceived abandonment.

Before we point fingers, how many times have we felt this way? We remember stories - and have some ourselves - of how God has worked in the past. We remember fondly the revivals of old. 

God, where are you now? Where are you in this dark season in my life? Where are you when the churches seem to need you most? 

Yet in what seems like despair, there is hope. God is shaping us into the image of Someone and we have to take all of that shaping, not just the parts that feel good.

In Psalm 42 & 43 the Psalmist seems to have been present with us in 2020 during the COVID outbreak. As we take a little walk down memory lane, we look at and apply this Psalm to that time, and draw lessons form the same.

In every moment, our hope can be found in only One - Jehovah. 

The One who loves, when we are unlovable, unloving. Who never changes, who is always faithful. 

He will be our only hope for the future.

IN Psalm 41 David reminds us of how God is for us when all others seem to be against us. I doing so he shows us the importance of forgiving those who have wronged us.

Jesus stated that he had come to give life more abundant. An abundant life is one free of bitterness among many other things. Going into this Psalm I didn't think I struggled with this issue very much. The Holy Spirit showed me otherwise in David's wise words, inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Whatever hurt you're holding onto, it's time to let go.

In Psalm 40, David provides a simple guide for exponential Christian growth: Patience.

More even than patience, we have to learn to lean on Him, to call out to Him. To allow him to work, to recognize and never lose what he has done for us. To see how we need him, how lost we were without him. To daily acknowledge that we have to give him our hearts, but even if our hearts are in the right place...

It still takes time. So let's learn some patience.

This week we have a first - 2 Psalms in one episode! Psalm 38 & 39 share a very important instruction amidst David's lament for his failures, for his sins.

Our sins rarely happen in an instant, most often, they are the result of many dominoes of sin that compound and grow until they take us captive. 

Thankfully, our Father in heaven's love never changes or diminishes. je is always ready with forgiveness. David provides us in these Psalms with a pattern that we can follow to restore the relationship with God.

In Psalm 37, David challenges us with getting angry with the wicked and maybe even angry at God when we see them just sinning and yet prospering.

Why do we suffer and they seem to not? Why do bad things seem to happen to us? Loss, disease, struggles. What is our hope? 

Stop. Trust. Delight. There is so much we can do, we can let God do, to get through these feelings - and to get through this season.

David takes us from the wickedness of the wicked to the goodness of God in a single Psalm. One of the most beautiful things we see about God's holiness in this Psalm is how he blesses our sacrifices with and abundance only a God who is above all else and all others can. 

When we acknowledge his holiness and sacrifice our own desires - when we sacrifice self because he is holy and deserving of sacrifice - what does he do but pour out abundance on us! This again serves to solidify what he says about himself and what we only partially understand - he is holy.

Psalm 35 finds David calling on God to fight against his enemies for him. There is a great lesson here in how we can be hesitant at times to ask for the same. 

So often we want God to just keep our "enemies" of temptation merely at arms length from us, instead of asking him to vanquish them violently from our lives. 

While David speaks of flesh and blood enemies, the truths in this Psalm are applicable to our battle against our flesh and the influences of the devil and his "principalities of the air" that we contend against every day. Thankfully, God has secured victory for us, we just need to let him fight.

This episode is crazy! Well at least it is an account of something crazy. We find ourselves in Psalm 34 and David is praying God as he so loves to do.

Ever made a bad decision for a good reason? When the outcome was favorable by God's grace, where did we place the credit? David writes this Psalm on the heels of a bad decision he made for a good reason that he wound up needing deliverance from. His praise here is a testimony that God indeed is good...

... and we can be very, very dumb.

Psalm 33 teaches about God's glory, his awesome power and how our joy can only be full in him.

Do we rejoice? Really rejoice? Does it spill out of us like water from an overfilled glass, splashing everything and everyone around us to where they can't help but fell joy as well? Do we paint an attractive picture of the joy we have in Christ to the point that others want to experience it, partake in it?

How else could we respond to God's greatness? To his redemption? Where else can we find that kind of hope?