Have you been let down?  Are circumstances overwhelming?

Find hope in Psalm 43.  Look up!

As the writer looked around him, in the day when he lived, he could find nothing that gave him any hope.  He saw a nation that had turned it’s back on God; a nation where deceitful and unjust men prospered, overseen by an oppressive enemy.

He felt let down and overwhelmed by the circumstances of his life.  He felt rejected by by everyone – even God.

However, before giving up, he pleaded for answers, and found them in God.  He looked up and realised that God had not rejected him, but was his source of hope.  He only needed to seek the Lord and come into his presence to find the strength needed to triumph in the trial.  Not only would he find strength in God, but God would bring light into his darkness, and provide the necessary truth to make sense of the confusion he found himself in.

Things are no different today, because God is no different today.  He is still the source of hope.  However dark and desperate your circumstances are, why not turn to God today?  The Lord Jesus Christ wants to draw near and delights to give strength to the weak, light to those in darkness, and truth to those in confusion.  

As we open our heart to him, and then open our Bibles when we are cast down and depressed, we will find our focus moving from the circumstances themselves, to the glory and goodness of the One who can bring us through.  The result of this change of focus will be a transformation amid the suffering.  Instead of complaint, there will be praise.  Instead of despair, there will be joy.  

– MC