“He said, ‘I will cause all My goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim the name Yahweh before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion'” (Exodus 33:19, HCSB).
God spoke these words to Moses in response to his request that God show Himself–His glory–to Moses. Moses made this request because he was concerned that Israel’s standing with God was in question.
“Why am I so depressed? Why this turmoil within me? Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him, my Savior and my God” (vs. 5).
Do you ever think you’ve got it all figured out?
Life is treating you well so you must be in God’s will because you are so blessed.
Then the bottom falls out of your life and all that “blessedness” seems to go away.
Then you get all conflicted and begin to question everything you think you knew about what is God’s will.
In fact, it may even seem as though God is hardly speaking to you any more.
These are some of the emotions the psalmist is expressing in this Psalm. He asks himself why he is so depressed when God is his hope and his Savior? He knows God is there and yet he yearns for fellowship with God: “As a deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, God. I thirst for God, the living God” (vs. 1-2).
But life has him at a disadvantage; he is down and out and looking for a way up to God.
It’s as if he is living life from the bottom!
So, my fellow bottom-dwellers, when you live life from the bottom, what’s important to you is not so much that you get to the top, but simply that your cry for help is heard and heeded by God…to know that God hears you from the bottom!
There’s a passion (or desperation) for God that comes from being at the bottom that’s really not there when you’re at the top of your game.
You see, God’s Kingdom is the abode of desperate people: “The poor in spirit are blessed, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs” (Matthew 5:3).
We trust and hope in God the most when we have to, not when we want to.
It’s hope sustained by desperation!
God knows how we work and so this is the way He works on us, from the bottom up!
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” The Apostle Paul echoes Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (see Matt. 6:25–34) that believers are not to be anxious because they entrust themselves to God, their Heavenly Father. Thus, Christians can present all their difficulties to God by prayer and supplication and God will answer. Now Paul does not say that God will grant all our requests. Rather, Paul says that in answer to prayer God’s peace will guard our hearts and minds. Paul’s use of “guard” has the connotation of God’s peace guarding believers’ hearts and minds and giving them an inward peace in much the same way that Roman soldiers guarded Philippi as a military garrison making its citizens feel safe. God’s answer to your heartfelt prayers is His peace, which safeguards your heart and mind from anxiety.
Steve's Bible Meditations 