Thinking about the future? Thinking about the next season of your life. Wondering if things will ever change? More often than not when we think of the future it is in the backdrop of the same people, the same complex problems, the same obstacles, the same activities, the same to-do list, the same…same…same!
It is that “status quo” that is bothering me. Nothing has changed.
There are two verses that keep cropping up in my life, during my quiet times, at church and in conversation. The first is a question which I think the Lord keeps bringing to mind, in Psalm 42:5
“Why so downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me?”
I believe God asks me questions when He needs me to locate where I am. To help me put my finger on what is going on inside me and then He tells me what I need to remember about Him. As I have searched my heart, I have put a finger on a sense of hopelessness, a feeling that there is no hope for change, no prospect of matters coming to right themselves, no end to that which I am long enduring.
I feel disturbed inside, unsettled, brought on by a realization that I am going to have to continue to live with certain things that are in my life right now, for the foreseeable future. My sense of being able to persevere longer, believe a little longer is not that strong. I wonder if I will ever feel victorious again?
The Psalm goes on to say: “Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” It repeats it again in verse 11 and again in the next Psalm 43:5. That word “yet” is catching my attention.
“Yet,” as in – not at this moment… but later… for sure.
The second verse that keeps cropping up in my life is Psalm 27:13:
“I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”
I have been meditating on this for a long time, have caught myself singing it to myself: “I will remain confident in this, I will see the goodness of the Lord.” Because I need to believe, even though it is not a reality in my heart, that I will see the goodness of the Lord in this year and I will “yet” praise Him.
For those of you that are facing the future, looking at the same (whatever it is) as before, who feel downcast in your souls, disturbed and slightly at a loss as to where your passion for a God-given future has disappeared to, I say: (Psalm 27:14)
Wait for the Lord: be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.
We will YET see the goodness of the Lord while we are still alive on this planet, while we are yet in the “land of the living”.
Father, help me to look to you and not the future. Help me to trust in the goodness of Your heart and not my circumstances. Help me to look with eyes of faith at the future years and develop an expectant heart. Give me courage, let me not shrink back in fear, but help me to remain confident in YOU.
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