Today's Meditation
Read Psalm 30
1I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up, and did not let my foes rejoice over me.
2O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.
3O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol, restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit.
4Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name.
5For his anger is but for a moment; his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.
6As for me, I said in my prosperity, “I shall never be moved.”
7By your favor, O Lord, you had established me as a strong mountain; you hid your face; I was dismayed.
8To you, O Lord, I cried, and to the Lord I made supplication:
9“What profit is there in my death, if I go down to the Pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness?
10Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me! O Lord, be my helper!”
11You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
12so that my soul may praise you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.
I want to concentrate on verse 5, "For God's anger is but for a moment; God's favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning."
I think parents know and understand the beginning of verse 5 very well. When our kids do something that is bad or wrong, it can make us angry, and our anger flashes for that moment. We might yell, reprimand, dole out consequences that fit the wrong-doing, but the love parents have for their children never goes away. It is the foundation by which parents gauge and temper their flashes of anger for a wrong. And the love that parents have for their children last long beyond the child rearing years. It doesn't end when the child becomes an adult, it continues for a lifetime.
The same is true with God. God has flashes of anger with us when we do something wrong, but they are based on a foundation of love that underlies everything that God does for us, favors that last forever, that never go away.
As the psalmist closes verse 5, I'm mindful of something that I've mentioned before; my night-times can sometimes be difficult. It is in the night that I wrestle through the day's conflicts, controversies, struggles, problems, even depressive moments. But, I have always found that joy comes in the morning. It is the breaking of a new day, a new start, an opportunity to re-set and try again.
Regardless of what happened yesterday, today is the beginning of something of the new. Our problems or our flashes of anger, or our sadness linger only as long as we allow them to linger. For me, I allow the night to break the cycle and to start again. And I allow the new day to awaken within me a truly new beginning, which is grounded in the love God has for God's own creation.
May the beginning of the new day inspire you to rise in God's love.
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