Daily Devotion – June 1, 2021 – Dr. Pat Taylor Ellison

Psalm 130
130:1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD.
130:2 Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!
130:3 If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand?
130:4 But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered.
130:5 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope;
130:6 my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning.
130:7 O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem.
130:8 It is he who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.

One of the most beautiful psalms of lament.

When we are low, when someone we love is (or even we ourselves are) suffering, we know that God is hearing our laments and our cries for help. We know God is walking with us because God promises to do that.

We are not punished for iniquities – God is forgiving, says the psalmist, so that we will revere God.

And so we wait for the Lord. Our soul waits. We hope. We hope because God has promised to be faithful. We wait for the Lord and the Lord’s answer to our prayers the way the watchman waits for the morning. The morning always comes. And God will always answer.

There is deep suffering in the psalm as in our lives, but there is deeper hope.

In these times when there is much unrest between neighbors, there is much hate speech and actual fighting within cities and even within families, the Devil is in these details, trying to divide even people of faith from each other. But we know better than to fall for those divisions and we know better than to succumb to hate.

Our God is a God of Love. We are called to love one another. That is very clear. We are not called to be right. We are called to be Christ’s followers. Let us endeavor to be caught being good to one another. Let us endeavor to be caught loving one another. In God’s word we have our hope.

Gracious God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for giving us words of hope, even in the midst of sorrow and suffering. Remind us that you are walking with us, even in times of fighting. We wait for your answers to our prayer, and we have real hope, for you are our God.   Amen.