Psalm 31 • Jeremiah 24:1-10 • Romans 9:19-33 • John 9:1-17
Psalm 31 is a prayer
for help that contains some of the most memorable images in the Bible. The
psalmist asks God to be a “rock of refuge,” a “strong fortress,” to rescue him
from “the net that is hidden for me,” to “set my feet in a broad place.”
The psalmist’s image of
himself is equally vivid. He’s a total wreck! “My bones waste away,” he says,
“my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing.” People flee from
him, he’s such a “horror.” He even hears people plotting to kill him. This is
not just somebody with a bad hair day. Things are so bad, in fact, that he feels
“far from [God’s] sight,” as though God has abandoned him. But God does hear
him. The psalmist says:
I will exult and
rejoice in your steadfast love,
because you have seen
my affliction;
you have taken heed of
my adversities,
and have not delivered
me into the hand of the enemy.
He has been rescued from the net, sheltered in the
strong fortress that is God.
How or why did that
happen? The psalmist says, in the midst of his difficulties, “I trust in you, O
Lord. . . . Let your face shine upon your servant/ save me in your steadfast
love.” He begged God for help because he trusted in that abundant, never-failing
love. That love is there for us, too, if we’ll just reach out for it.
— Anne Ribble
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