BIBLE BREAKFAST (#352) 03/11/20 (English)
“Healing from being disquieted (or distressed)…”
? Psalm 42:5,11 & 43:5 “Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him For the help of His countenance.”
▪️Three times, word for word, the psalmist repeats this amazing conversation with his own soul that first starts with a question: “Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me?” He then gives an answer himself: “Hope in God, for I shall yet praise him For His countenance”.
▪️Whether we want it or not, the life of a person on earth is accompanied by very different kinds of circumstances, a part of which subject a person to gloom and distress.
▪️How Nekrasov once wrote: and here the soul is surrounded by gloom, my homeland no longer welcomed me gently; a friend that used to love us, but no longer has the previous faith.
▪️Lately, these circumstances that subject people to gloom and distress are happening more and more, both on a personal level and in our communities.
▪️ “Gloom”- is a grim state of apathy and depression, disappointment, the mood in which a person loses interest in their situation and what is happening around them.
▪️”Distress”- a feeling and a state of confusion, turmoil, commotion, anxiety, and restlessness; the loss of confidence and stability.
▪️These two conditions truly follow one after the other, “beating” someone off track, paralyzing their movement.
▪️The reasons for this happening can be on a personal level- sicknesses, apparent failures, the loss of a loved one, separations, betrayals, being cheated, unexpected changes, the loss of income, not enough means for survival, aging changes, etc. On a community level- events that are occurring in the world, catastrophes, frightening epidemics, established laws, etc.
▪️Is it possible to escape all of this? Not always. Sometimes you can, but sometimes you can’t. It’s not always in our power to do so.
▪️But to have a different reaction to everything is in our power. This is the main thought of the psalmist who asked his soul a question, being subjected to gloom and distress, and at the same time, giving an answer to the kind of a decision he’s making. How to react to everything, or in other words, with the help of what he sees as only being possible, correctly go through all of this: “Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him For His countenance”.
▪️In other words, a person who knows God is not concerned with all of the things that may cause gloom and distress in his life, but that person has the ability given by God to go about things in a different way, not being controlled by gloom and distress. But this depends on whether or not a person uses this ability.
▪️I remember the moment when my mom passed over to heaven. For all of us, and me personally, this was a shock and a deep experience, of course, of deep sorrow and pain.
▪️This happened on a Friday and on Sunday in church, specifically during worship, I experienced a moment of internal healing that I will never forget.
▪️Yes, the tears were flowing, I couldn’t stop them, but specifically in the praise and worship of God, there came such a great peace in my heart that I thought I could touch it…
▪️This is nothing other than a coming feeling of dependence from and on God through “Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him For the help of His countenance”
▪️I remember this same experience in a period of trials in my life when our daughter, who was 11 years old, was diagnosed with diabetes and for us this was very painful and gave us a reason to feel gloom and distress.
▪️”Hope”, a solid, stable reliance on someone or something. You can say, this is the foundation in which if you do not have it, everything will fall apart when you go through trials; if you do have it, you are capable of going through anything that causes gloom and distress.
▪️Namely praise, thankfulness, and worship- this is the most powerful fabric for the foundation of hope and solid reliance.
▪️The psalmist, David, understood this clearly, that is why he wrote so many praise- worthy psalms and the content of which was directed the praise of God and this was his foundation of hope, that protected him from all kinds of gloom and distress.
? Have a good day and a hope on God in every moment, in the good and in the bad, and not focusing on the pain and worry, but praising God, even through tears! (With prayer, Valeriy Bayko).
? P.S. If needed, share this with others. Thank you for the re-post. (If you have a comment or a question, you may type it below this post or write to me at [email protected])