Psalm 44:23-26:“Awake, Lord! Why do You sleep? Rouse Yourself! Do not reject us forever. Why do You hide Your face and forget our misery and oppression? We are brought down to the dust; our bodies cling to the ground. Rise up and help us; rescue us because of Your unfailing love.”

Those Israelites seemed to grumble a lot! It seems they let their fear, disappointment and troubles take precedent over ‘trusting in the Lord with all their hearts and not leaning on their own understanding.’ Often their prayers echoed their disappointments – see above!  Maybe they mistakenly thought that their God was like all the other pagan gods they had seen all around them – deaf and useless! 

They thought Almighty God should be SomeOne Who would serve, protect and answer them — IF He wanted their loyalty. Then I needed to repent for the many timesI have thought like this, or something else like it, when things got stressful. Have you ever looked at your situation and internally wondered if Almighty God is not listening?  Is He busy instead listening to some wonderful worship on Spotify? Where did He go??

Maybe you have said this … (I know I have!) — ‘I don’t see why God is not answering my prayers, after all He said in His Word … blah blah blah …  why isn’t He answering me?’’ Perhaps it is time we started asking ourselves hard questions — because Father God is so much bigger than our stupid hard questions! I don’t know about you, but my shadow hasn’t healed anybody recently …  … or ever … come to think of it. Sigh. 

I think that we are being tempted to reduce the Lord down to the level of our disappointments, and we’ve settled there. This means we have lowered our expectations of God’s goodness. I don’t think anybody can be happy in that unhappy place, but people gotta live, and it doesn’t seem to look good for people who want to live a life of faith. Unanswered prayers are a real thing – but should we let that stop us?!

There are times I think God allows us to be reduced to a more realistic size so we can stop looking down on someone else who isn’t doing very well with their faith either. The way we regard Him is clearly revealed to us when bad stuff happens and it doesn’t go away immediately. Thank the Lord He is a Redeemer!

After my mother died, my husband had heaps of work to do – he was the executor of her will. Meanwhile our whole world was tilted on its axis, because someone we loved was no longer with us. People told us all this stuff would be so easy, but as it turned out, those things were not easy for us. In the middle of all the legalese – and there was mountains of it – someone hacked into our bank account. My poor hubby practically had the phone glued to his ear for days. After we had been hacked, we reverted to not trusting anyone over the phone, and that meant even more work for him.

Things were already difficult and then, wouldn’t you know, they got … worse.  We all know about worse, because we’ve all bin there and dun that. Thank God for all the brethren who prayed for us! Around this time I got cellulitis and discovered I was allergic to the antibiotics! I had to have unexpected elongated hospital appointments because of that. Now I was beginning to look at those dopey Israelites that I mentioned above, with a lot more understanding! 

It didn’t take me long to figure out that human beings don’t like to be uncomfortable, we like things to be easy. And what was going on at our house was far from easy. I love what Isaiah says at the end of this prayer! “Please remember You love us Lord!” 

The days crawled by with me not sleeping and hubby walking around like a zombie because when I don’t sleep, he doesn’t sleep either. He’s my carer as well as my spouse. And we rocketed about lurching from one unexpected difficulty to another. When I prayed, it seemed my prayers bounced off the ceiling. I think I made the same mistake the Israelites made … I had forgotten we have an enemy who loves to make a big noise and mess with and agitate people. 

My focus was on what was going on, and praying like mad everything would resolve itself soon, because I didn’t like the place I was stuck in!!  We failed to check out the surroundings looking for spiritual enemies at our gate, and some of them pushed their way into our house and caused even more chaos. It was hard to live through. However, I’m sure other people have lived through much harder times. 

Today I just want to make one point …“When trouble strikes … remember to strike back.” Jesus gave us His authority. We can hide behind a rock while Goliath shouts at us OR we can run at that thing and kill it dead with the blood of Jesus. And boy do we all need the practice. God is not rejecting us, it’s a lie! Bye. 👋