Prison to Praise

And I said, “This is my anguish; But I will remember .......  Psalm 77:10 

If you are going through a miserable time wondering if God is there for you, please take time to read the whole of this psalm's 20 verses.  This poor man was having a miserable sleepless night, no doubt rehearsing all his troubles and totally wondering where God was in all of it,  he could not understand why God wasn't answering his prayers, he felt rejected, he wondered whether God would ever answer his prayers again, he asks "Has God slammed the door on compassion?" (Vs 9 NLT)

At this point he made a decision....to remember what God had done in the past.  He remembered his faithfulness, that he is mighty and awesome in power and so on.  I would like to say that this psalm comes to a happy ending but it leaves us in mid air.  In a way that's good because it reminds us that we are left hanging for quite awhile sometimes in our difficulties and it takes more than one night's prayer to see an answer.

What I wanted to look at here is the decision the psalmist made to change his thoughts from fear of God forsaking him and leaving him in his misery, to thoughts of remembering God's faithfulness in the past.  When we do that something changes in us and our fear is replaced with faith and our hopelessness changes to hope.  In 1 Samuel 30:6 we see David in a terrible position surrounded by grief but he made a choice and he "encouraged himself in the Lord".  No doubt he turned his thoughts towards what God had done in the past, what he had promised in his word and through the prophet.  He set his mind on a positive course.

I am not talking about "think nice thoughts, positive thoughts and it will all work out" type of thinking which we hear a lot about today.  I am talking about God-centred, God-honouring thoughts centred in His truth, the Bible, in his character and his faithfulness to his word. These are the kind of thoughts that have a foundation in something of substance, not just an airy fairy hope.

Years ago there were some books written by Merlin Carothers called Prison to Praise and Power in Praise and they gave a powerful message which I remember to this day.  We can get out of our prison of misery by turning our hearts to praise and thanks in affirming that God is faithful and he does hear our cries and we can trust that through our misery he will do a good work in us, (Romans 8:28).

Prayer:  Faithful God, thank you for the reminder that I have a choice to focus on my problems or to remember your faithfulness in times past and stir up my faith to believe you for solutions by encouraging myself in your word.  Amen