Wednesday 01 July 2015

Psalm: Psalm 36

Background

Our God is a great God. God does stuff. And because God doesstuff we have something to celebrate.

However, as is often the case in the writings of the OldTestament prophets, we keep getting it wrong. It is a simpledilemma, if we have a God who has done all these great things, whydo we keep turning away from God?

Isaiah writes a short testimony of God in this passage, alongwith the problem that currently it feels like God is not doinganything. He has laid out in this passage some examples of whereGod has acted, and linked that to people's responses, such as Goddelivering the Israelites from Egypt by doing amazing things. Wehave a God portrayed in the Old Testament as an emotional God, whogrieves, who gets angry, who gets sad, and all in response to God'sown people. If they suffer, God gets sad. God grieves when theywalk away. God gets happy when they are together with God. SoIsaiah tells his readers that when his people suffer so doesGod.

Within these words there is also a future echo of Jesus. We seeJesus as the Saviour. We know he suffered. We know he redeemed us.But the readers of Isaiah didn't know Jesus. They did know thatthey had a God who was special, and Isaiah points out that part ofwhat makes our God special is that God responds to peopleemotionally.

This is indeed worthy of praise.

To Ponder

• It is the middle of the week. What do you have from this weekthat you can give praise for?

• What makes you happy? Sad? Angry? Grieved? What helps with thenegative feelings? How might you respond with the positivefeelings?