A Court of Appeals
Friday (November 21)
A Court of Appeals
Psalm 77:9-10
Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion? Then I said, “I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High.”
When I read that word “appeal” here, I suddenly imagine an inner courtroom where two opposing voices are battling over Asaph’s perception, one a prosecutorial, devilish voice full of accusations, and the other a defending voice that produces a montage of buried memories. Picture it with me, friend. There he sits, in the middle of the drama, as the prosecutor rises with a malicious shout, “Asaph—think of all the ways God has let us down! Think of all those promises to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob that He still hasn’t kept! Here you are, day after day, getting beaten down by godless enemies, waiting for a consolation that doesn’t come, waiting for a salvation that is as far away today as it has always been because God won’t follow through!” But then another voice resonates, not quite like the loud, clamorous, malicious screeches of the prosecutor, but more like a lower, softer hum, filling up the atmosphere with sharper questions in powerful rebuttal: “Asaph, remember what God has done throughout history! God did not abandon Abraham—He gave Abraham a son even in his old age! And God did not abandon Jacob when Jacob sinned and stole Esau’s birthright—He blessed him in the wilderness and gave him a new name. And God has not abandoned you, even though you’re surrounded by enemies too strong for you, even though the devils surround you from all sides and cause you to forget all those precious times Heaven stooped all the way down to rescue you from your own confusion and doubt and distress—to lift you up and set you back on your feet! I appeal to you, Asaph—Remember!”
Friend, although that above depiction is a fictionalization of the internal battle, you know as well as I do the perpetual, sometimes moment-by-moment back and forth between the lies and the truth, between doubting God and trusting Him, between falling short and pressing on. So, no matter what you’re feeling today, take comfort from this promise of our triumphant Savior: “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”