Why Am I Discouraged?

April 5, 2017

Why Am I Discouraged?

Send out your light and your truth;

let them guide me.

Let them lead me to your holy mountain,

to the place where you live.

Psalm 43:3

Occasionally, my wife Cheryl travels to visit our grandchildren, and leaves me home alone. I am pretty useless while she is gone. What I do accomplish requires more effort than usual. I know she will soon return. I know she is simply gone from my sight, that's all. She is just the same as when I saw her, but things seem different.

Perhaps the psalmist had similar feelings in his relationship with Elohim. For whatever reasons, his present reality caused him to use hyperbole to express his sense of loss, his sense of longing for closeness to God. Whatever his inner turmoil, the psalmist was single-minded in his purpose: “There I will go to the altar of God, to God—the source of all my joy. I will praise you with my harp, O God, my God!” (v.4).The psalmist knows who alone can fill the God-shaped vacuum in his heart.

People often have scripture passages bookmarked, taped to walls or attached to their refrigerators. Is verse 5 included in your collection? If not, today is a good day to add it to your collection.

Why am I discouraged?

    Why is my heart so sad?

I will put my hope in God!

    I will praise him again—

    my Savior and my God!

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.