Lord God,
You are God and there is no God like you. In your hands are all power and authority and no one can hold back what you have decreed. You are a good, just, and loving God, perfect in all Your ways. You are my God; in You will I place my hope and find my joy. Yet my faith so often falters and my joy can so easily be swept away, for I live in a world that is fallen and my mind perceives so little of all that you have planned.
You command all who hope in You to rejoice always. Indeed, frequently am I told from the Word to rejoice in the Lord. This is easy when Your blessings abound, when You are a hedge about me and when my life passes with pleasure because of your goodness poured out to me. Then I am compelled to sing of Your great love and the beauty of Your grace. But what do I do with books like Job and Lamentations? Was not Job the most righteous man on the earth and yet calamity and hardship came upon him as You, O Lord, allowed? In Lamentations, did you not bring your people down to destruction and no longer hear their pleas for help because they forsook You for idols? Were such trials to befall me, would I then be free from the charge of joyfulness? Could I then give full vent to my pain and call to question the actions and purposes of the Lord? Is it possible to have joy when You have turned Your back to me and have caused me to wander in darkness and sorrow apart from you?
What then shall I say? Am I to accept good from the Lord and not evil as well? Hope has not utterly abandoned me nor has joy completely forsaken me that I should cease to seek You. Even then, this one fact remains: God is God as much now as He was in the past and will be in the future. You do not change. I know that Your faithfulness is great and Your mercies never fail. I know that You are completely righteous and just. You are also loving and compassionate. You are sovereign. In these truths I shall find my rest and my salvation.
Again, have not all things that befall me been decreed by You, O Lord? Though I would cry out in my affliction for lack of understanding and seek to justify myself by my own righteousness, I will be silenced before Your awesomeness. I am but a creature and do not even fathom the workings of this physical world. Yet You hold the world together so that it endures. How then would I be able to understand Your plans for all eternity, as it has been set forth by Your wisdom, where You to explain it all to me? So then, I am unable to question or call to account Your decrees, for You answer to no man and no one can thwart the working out of Your plan in the power and might of Your holiness.
So even in our afflictions, I will cling to the Lord. Though my years pass away as a sigh and I go down to death in trouble and sorrow, I shall still have joy in You. Such joy is not rooted in my merit or what has come to pass in my life but on the eternal and awesome character of my God. I know that He is just and will do right. As for those who pass from this world; the time is coming when they will have to stand before the judgment seat of God with their eternal destiny in the balance. To those who know You and follow You even to the grave, You will grant eternal life and pleasures from Your right hand. To them falls the blessing as heirs of God to dwell forever with You. Only then will I learn to see aright the Your goodness in my life. Whatever trials I may endure, whatever hardships I may suffer, whatever injustice may be committed against me; all will pail before the mercy seat of my Savior. The Lord is mighty to save and will not forever withhold His justice and His love from those who fear Him. In this truth I find hope and in my God I will delight. Indeed, such knowledge is too wonderful for me and so I will silent to wait upon You. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
You are God and there is no God like you. In your hands are all power and authority and no one can hold back what you have decreed. You are a good, just, and loving God, perfect in all Your ways. You are my God; in You will I place my hope and find my joy. Yet my faith so often falters and my joy can so easily be swept away, for I live in a world that is fallen and my mind perceives so little of all that you have planned.
You command all who hope in You to rejoice always. Indeed, frequently am I told from the Word to rejoice in the Lord. This is easy when Your blessings abound, when You are a hedge about me and when my life passes with pleasure because of your goodness poured out to me. Then I am compelled to sing of Your great love and the beauty of Your grace. But what do I do with books like Job and Lamentations? Was not Job the most righteous man on the earth and yet calamity and hardship came upon him as You, O Lord, allowed? In Lamentations, did you not bring your people down to destruction and no longer hear their pleas for help because they forsook You for idols? Were such trials to befall me, would I then be free from the charge of joyfulness? Could I then give full vent to my pain and call to question the actions and purposes of the Lord? Is it possible to have joy when You have turned Your back to me and have caused me to wander in darkness and sorrow apart from you?
What then shall I say? Am I to accept good from the Lord and not evil as well? Hope has not utterly abandoned me nor has joy completely forsaken me that I should cease to seek You. Even then, this one fact remains: God is God as much now as He was in the past and will be in the future. You do not change. I know that Your faithfulness is great and Your mercies never fail. I know that You are completely righteous and just. You are also loving and compassionate. You are sovereign. In these truths I shall find my rest and my salvation.
Again, have not all things that befall me been decreed by You, O Lord? Though I would cry out in my affliction for lack of understanding and seek to justify myself by my own righteousness, I will be silenced before Your awesomeness. I am but a creature and do not even fathom the workings of this physical world. Yet You hold the world together so that it endures. How then would I be able to understand Your plans for all eternity, as it has been set forth by Your wisdom, where You to explain it all to me? So then, I am unable to question or call to account Your decrees, for You answer to no man and no one can thwart the working out of Your plan in the power and might of Your holiness.
So even in our afflictions, I will cling to the Lord. Though my years pass away as a sigh and I go down to death in trouble and sorrow, I shall still have joy in You. Such joy is not rooted in my merit or what has come to pass in my life but on the eternal and awesome character of my God. I know that He is just and will do right. As for those who pass from this world; the time is coming when they will have to stand before the judgment seat of God with their eternal destiny in the balance. To those who know You and follow You even to the grave, You will grant eternal life and pleasures from Your right hand. To them falls the blessing as heirs of God to dwell forever with You. Only then will I learn to see aright the Your goodness in my life. Whatever trials I may endure, whatever hardships I may suffer, whatever injustice may be committed against me; all will pail before the mercy seat of my Savior. The Lord is mighty to save and will not forever withhold His justice and His love from those who fear Him. In this truth I find hope and in my God I will delight. Indeed, such knowledge is too wonderful for me and so I will silent to wait upon You. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Amen
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