“I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart;
I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.
I will be glad and rejoice in you;
I will sing the praises of your name, O Most High.”
- Psalm 9:1-2 -

The psalmist’s emotions fluctuate between gratitude for God’s past protection and desperate pleas for God’s deliverance in the present danger. Now, in imminent danger, he calls out to God to protect and save him, as he has done before. The warrior psalmist believes that he is on the side of a righteous God and that the enemy are the ‘wicked’ (v 5), opposing God’s people. Yet, rather than exuding confidence, there is a note of desperation in his words. He calls upon God to see his peril and save him from the ‘gates of death’ (v 13).

This is the psalmists’ quandary, the dilemma of all the righteous, the good and godly people living under the old covenant... Despite our trust in God, however, we began to see that the equation did not always work. Good people sometimes suffered while bad people often triumphed. Why does God do nothing when the wicked crush the poor? Why does God let the wicked boast of their prosperity and revile God? The answers lay in a distant future which some psalmists ‘saw … from a distance’5 but none truly understood, a future when, through Christ, all the redeemed people of God would finally experience unending peace and justice in God’s eternity.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank you for involvement in my life. Help to see your hand in the small happenings of my daily life.

(from Encounter with God)

* May we have trust in the Lord God, His sovereign reign in His goodness and consummation of His redemptive plan in Jesus. May we spend throughout this week like the Psalmist who confessed to give thanks to the Lord, with all our heart and be glad and rejoice in the Lord (Ps 9:1-2). Amen.