Dear Friends,
We hope this week's devotional will encourage you in your spiritual walk. We give thanks to Major Dr Dean Smith, Director of Learning and Teaching and Senior Lecturer in Theology and Philosophy for writing this devotional. You are welcome to share this and include it in your church newsletters if you wish; we just ask that you please give credit to NTC and the author. Thank you!
Psalm 22: 1-15 (NRSVUE)
Plea for Deliverance from Suffering and Hostility
To the leader: according to The Deer of the Dawn. A Psalm of David.
1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;
and by night but find no rest.
3 Yet you are holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.
4 In you our ancestors trusted;
they trusted, and you delivered them.
5 To you they cried and were saved;
in you they trusted and were not put to shame.
6 But I am a worm and not human,
scorned by others and despised by the people.
7 All who see me mock me;
they sneer at me; they shake their heads;
8 “Commit your cause to the Lord; let him deliver—
let him rescue the one in whom he delights!”
9 Yet it was you who took me from the womb;
you kept me safe on my mother’s breast.
10 On you I was cast from my birth,
and since my mother bore me you have been my God.
11 Do not be far from me,
for trouble is near,
and there is no one to help.
12 Many bulls encircle me;
strong bulls of Bashan surround me;
13 they open wide their mouths at me,
like a ravening and roaring lion.
14 I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint;
my heart is like wax;
it is melted within my breast;
15 my mouth is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to my jaws;
you lay me in the dust of death.
Devotion
I wonder where we get the idea that life is fair. I guess we are fed this notion from numerous sources as soon as we are able to learn. We are taught that if we work hard then we will profit from our efforts, that we can be whatever we want to be and that our imagination is the only thing limiting us. Also, that goodness is rewarded, and evil punished. Add to this positive thinking potion the idea that God protects his own from harm and upscales our possibilities then why should we ever have cause to complain? The problem is that these often tacitly held views bear absolutely no correspondence to reality, and I think deep down we know this to be the case. We can see this tension between the ideal and the real work itself out in the Biblical material. In our reading for this week we can feel the despair of the Psalmist and the realisation that life is not fair and that at such times it can genuinely feel that God has deserted us and that all that we have believed about the way the world works is upended. It is when we can learn the harder lesson that nothing can separate us from the love of God, that we move from possessing the faith and hope of a child to possessing the faith and hope of an adult. Only such a person can say with Job, Even though he slay me, yet will I trust him.
Prayer
Lord, we seek for a deeper experience of faith that allows us to know that you are with us during our times of despair and grief even when we don't experience or feel your presence. Teach us the deeper truths of life beyond those we have imbibed from our society since youth and fill us with the hope we need to weather all the storms of life. And Lord, with Paul, help us not to lose heart. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. Amen
Dean Smith, PhD (Director of Learning and Teaching, Senior Lecturer in Theology and Philosophy)