Three Pearls, Three Minutes, Thirty Days. (Day 13)

 

   Today’s Three Pearls

• How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? – v.1:  God can never forget us, He is omniscient; the second question is more appropriate. We are very likely to count the days in our periods of affliction but we don’t count the days when everything is going well. The length of the trial is more likely to exhaust the child of God than the intensity of it. Yet the gospel is full of examples  of long afflictions; 12 years of hemorrhage; 38 years by the pool of Bethesda; Lazarus’ entire life was disease and poverty ridden, his relief came in heaven. God will only hide His face for a season and for reasons that are best left to Him; but we can be sure that His motive and purpose is always for our own greater good.
• But I trust in your unfailing love;my heart rejoices in your salvation -v.5: Therein lies the secret of surviving the hidden Face of God. A remembrance of His past mercies and extravagant show of love towards us to revive our trust; a love that does not depend on anything that we do so we cannot claim to have earned it; a love that just wants us to accept and live in the righteousness offered by His Son’s finished work on our behalf; a love that wants us to ALWAYS rejoice in that finished work of atonement, no matter what we are going through.
• I will sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to me – v.6: This is what a remembrance of God’s unfailing love and past mercies always does to the soul in affliction – a soothing balm that numbs the miseries by reminding the poor soul of the character of God and the reach of His mighty power on behalf of those who trust in Him – this inevitably causes a break-out song of praise for Jehovah, praise for past deeds and praise of anticipated deliverances.

 

Ref: Treasury of David