I’m reading a book about prayer. One chapter tells about praising God, and reading Psalm 43 reminds me of this. I wondered who wrote this psalm, and the author is unknown. There’s a type of comfort in this anonymity, a unity, that everyone has felt troubled or overwhelmed at some point.
I value how this author holds his questions and hope together before the Lord. He asks of the Lord. He asks of himself.
Why have you rejected me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me? Psalm 43:2b, 5, NIV
There are other asks, bolder ones based on God’s character of One Who Can. But not as questions, these are petitions.
Vindicate me, my God,
and plead my cause
against an unfaithful nation.
Rescue me from those who are
deceitful and wicked.Send me your light and your faithful care,
let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy mountain,
to the place where you dwell. (Psalm 43:1, 3, NIV, emphasis added)
And throughout, I see the praise in the prayer.
You are God my stronghold.
Then I will go to the altar of God,
to God, my joy and my delight.
I will praise you with the lyre,
O God, my God.Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God. (Psalm 43:2a, 4, 5b, NIV)
God, you are God my stronghold, my joy, my delight, my Savior, my God. I’m so grateful for your word. Grateful to hold questions and bold asks and prayer and praise before you, like countless others have and still do. I put my hope in you and praise you.
Courtney (66books365)
Sixty-six books in a year 