Shadow Of Sorrow | God Blog

We should feel sorrow, but not sink under its oppression.
- Confucius

Shadow Of Sorrow

Psalms in the Night…

With so many wonderful Biblical promises and powerful examples of God's interaction with mankind, see Psalms of Delight, Psalms in the Night are a way of exploring and sharing some of the difficult and challenging thoughts, feelings and experiences God's people encounter while endeavoring to fully enjoy His presence and power, protection and provision. In ever more genuine and meaningful ways. For themselves and their children, family and friends.

Psalms in the Night are written in concert with Psalms of Delight. Both series contain Modern Psalms meant to comfort and inspire those seeking the Omni-God revealed in Scripture.

Shadow Of Sorrow Summary

"Life's what happens while we're busy making other plans" may make for a funny a bumper sticker, but the sentiment looses it's mirth in real life. This Psalm in the Night succinctly address real life sorrow and grief, demonstrating how to wrestle with God for a blessing, while recognizing His idea and ours of what constitutes "being blessed" may be different.

Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.

- 2 Corinthians 7:10 NIV

Shadow Of Sorrow
Modern Psalm in the Night 3

Turning fifty next year's got me thinking. Not just because of the time gone by but because time's growing short as sorrow casts a long shadow in this season of life.

I miss the relationship I worked so hard to cultivate and maintain with my precious son and daughter. Grown and gone, neither of them are doing half as well as I'd hoped and prayed. My body's showing signs of wear and tear, as is my home, which in two years has lost nearly all the equity it took two decades to build.

California's in a drought during which my career's evaporated like a mirage, taking with it what little wealth I had. Making matters worse, for a third time in a row a trusted and close colleague usurped my ministry, leaving my family desolate once again. Of course this is all doing wonders for my marriage.

Ironically, this was the season I'd been anticipating a breakthrough not a breakdown. I was hoping You'd notice three decades of dedicated work on behalf of Your kingdom. I trusted the quality and quantity of God's blessing in and on my life would be on the increase, rather than receding in the rear vie mirror. Please remember me like You did Joseph, sold into slavery by the brothers he loved and trusted. Remember me like You did Mordecai in the days of Esther. Remember me like You did Cornelius, sending first a angel and then Peter in response to his long history of prayers and acts of faith.

Count It Joy

Forgive me for saying but from my point of view all this grief is undeserved. It's like someone's messed with the time line and changed reality. This isn't the life I planned and worked for. Pretty tough just to “count it all joy.” That's the advanced, "New Creation" curriculum.

While I'm no David, I feel like he did:

"Please, God, no more yelling, no more trips to the woodshed. Treat me nice for a change; I'm so starved for affection. Can't you see I'm black-and-blue, beat up badly in bones and soul? God, how long will it take for you to let up? Break in, God, and break up this fight; if you love me at all, get me out of here. I'm no good to you dead, am I? I can't sing in your choir if I'm buried in some tomb!" Psalm 6:1-5 MSG

And by the way, why is it so hard to build and so easy to destroy? Is it right that years of effort, if not blood, sweat and tears can be burned up with a single match lit by someone else? Is there no Divine provision for those doing their best to "seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness?" What about "and all these things will be added unto you." It seems all that's being added unto me lately is disappointment and loss.

While the world was taken with the Prayer of Jabez, I was living out the prayer of Ezra. While others feasted and praised, I fasted and travailed over our sins and issues others rarely noticed. When I found that millions of babies where being aborted annually in America alone I championed their cause. I sounded the alarm far and wide, proclaiming the truth of Your word others had missed. I patiently and passionately revealed the impact abortion's had on modern Christianity, our prayers and even worship. I explained abortion's collateral damage to society, educated communities and identified meaningful ways for Christians to get involved. I pleaded with pastors and congregations to understand our hardness of heart was cursing our very blessings, hastening judgement, and putting our salvation at risk. While others passed by a lost generation, I remembered Your story of the Good Samaritan and for years stayed to lend a hand.

You know better than any I'm no saint but shouldn't You bless Your people for doing well? Many passages say as much, but then others suggest recognizing Your blessing can be challenging. James' epistle points out:

"Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing." James 1:1-4

As God You realize this is not the "great joy" I was hoping for. I'm with You on the the being perfect and needing nothing part, but why does the process have to be so painful? I know there are lots of reasons. From "life happens" to the deceitfulness of sin, from the frailty of people and relationships, to fierceness of devils and the Evil One. Even so, shouldn't the sense of Your presence increase when we need You most? In the spirit of Jeremiah's lament and Habukkuk's complaint I cry why be so silent and distant? You're our Creator and Savior not wiling that any should perish! Can't You hear us asking, seeking and knocking? As we wrestle with You, wont You let your messengers win and rend the heavens and come down.

The Bible does offer encouragement, particularly for the suffering, but while it may sound good on paper the reality leaves much to be desired. In fact James continues to turn our thoughts and feelings inside out by suggesting poverty, not wealth, is a sign of God's honor:

"Believers who are poor have something to boast about, for God has honored them. And those who are rich should boast that God has humbled them. They will fade away like a little flower in the field. The hot sun rises and the grass withers; the little flower droops and falls, and its beauty fades away. In the same way, the rich will fade away with all of their achievements." James 1:9-10

In the Gospel of Luke Jesus calls the poor blessed promising, "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Matthew's version adds "poor in spirit." A thought He reinforced in the Rich Man and Lazarus and again in the Rich Young Ruler.

Well if financial and emotional, social and spiritual poverty are really signs of wealth, then Hallelujah, I'm getting richer by the minute!

God's Eye View

Clearly from the vantage point of eternity You know what's really going on. We have points of view but You have View! But the pain of loss doesn't seem like gain down here in the trenches. When Your promotions look like rejections, and poverty's some kind of hidden blessing, the whole thing just feels to us like a curse...

I'm thankful that through Christ You offer an Eternity of bliss in exchange for our temporary pain. As the old hymn promises, "Joy unspeakable and full of glory." I'm glad for the Apostle Paul's example of faith. Beaten five times to literally within a lash of his life, he bore the scars of 195 whip marks, tokens of appreciation by Your own people! Stoned to death, shipwrecked, and snake bit for Christ's sake, You granted him a preview of what You're preparing for those who love You:

"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him." 1 Corinthians 2:8-10

"And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him! That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens." Romans 8:17-21

It all sounds great, particularly when compared to the alternative. But when time carries you farther from the hopes and dreams you had for your family and friends, it's a little hard to believe. When the prayers of so many of those you know go unanswered or worse, it seems to add insult to injury. When in the midst of it all You remain silent and distant, it's looks to me like a receipt for disaster.

That's why I'm here, again, begging You for something more before our faith runs out. That's why I'm asking for Your forgiveness and revival. That's why I'm asking You to help us approach and find You before its too late. "Ollie Ollie oxen free." Stop hiding and come out while we still believe, as Simon Peter did before Your Spirit filled him with Your presence:

At this point many of his disciples turned away and deserted him. Then Jesus turned to the Twelve and asked, “Are you also going to leave?” Simon Peter replied, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life." John 6:66-69

Fill us as You filled Your people of old! Fill us to a greater degree for in many ways our need is greater! Let faith arise and transform us from sinners to saints and victims to victors. And do it today, this very moment. Give us the power and authority to be ambassadors of Your Kingdom. Grant us the privilege of experiencing and proving what is the good and acceptable will of God, through the experience and demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit. Fill us that we can say with Christ:

“This happened so the power of God could be seen. We must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the one who sent us. The night is coming, and then no one can work." John 9:3-4

Surely the "night" is darkening in the 21st Century. We're running out of time. If I might quote the disciples, "Teacher, don't you care we are perishing?" Day and night the Accuser parades our sins before You. We're already dropping like flies and soon war will break out in Heaven and the evil of mankind will overtake us in the greatest tribulation ever known! By Your Spirit grant us the grace to repent and cry out for a New Pentecost with an immediate global yield of a million upper rooms. Make us Prophetic Christians who seek You diligently and relentlessly.

With Hell to loose and Heaven to gain, help us recognize and heed the Bible's prophetic advice and experience Your presence as the Apostles did and prayed we would. As Sean Connery prayed as King Arthur, ”Give us the wisdom to know the right, the will to choose it and the strength to make it endure." That we might do Your will, Your whole will and nothing but Your will. So help us God.

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