Psalm 94- Days of Adversity

We are living in a turbulent time. We live in a country where people are guaranteed the right to freedom of speech.  Cable TV keeps its ratings up by expanding our exposure to a full spectrum of ideologies, gripes, criticisms and a lot of snark. The internet is available for blogging, commentary and news from every corner of the earth. We can be exposed to so much information, whether it be true or untrue. It stirs up a lot of reaction and adversarial rhetoric.

We all go through swirling times of unrest in our lives through relationships, our own musings and our exposure to the culture around us. The time in which we live seems turbulent, but there have always been turbulent times in history, as exemplified in reading the Old Testament. The Old Testament is pretty clear about the why's of problems in a society.  It involves an inverse relationship with God and lack of trust. We read about 40 years of peace in a given reign in Biblical times and it usually means there is a greater respect and love for God and thus a subsequent down season of evil.

So how do we deal with the miasma of the world and life in general. I was thinking of all that late last night. It was one of my mental dizziness moments.  I ran across Psalm 94 when I opened my Bible. It is a wonderful song and it speaks to all that is going on in the world. I like solutions and verses 12 and 13 caught my attention:

12 Blessed is the man (geber) whom thou chastenest (train), O Lord, and teachest (instruct) him out of thy law;13 That thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit be digged for the wicked. Psalm 92:12-13

This particular use of the word 'man' has a sense of strength to it. It could even refer to a warrior. Evil exists in this world and it is not something to be ignorant of. We are in a fight. Dealing with it involves training. It also involves instruction. Teaching and training is where rest can gain a strong foot hole in our thinking. That happens in our minds. We commit to the training and instruction of God. That is what a strong person does. In verse 19 the psalmist talks about his 'multitude of thoughts'. We all have them and a strong person will also say 'thy comforts delight my soul' in response.

The wicked are digging their own pit.  It is in their own iniquity that they will be tripped (verse 23). God hears (verse 9) and God sees (verse 9 again) all that is going on and sooner or later everything will be brought to light.  In verse 1,  there are two references to vengeance. It does not say God is vengeful. It says both times that vengeance belongs to God. That is all God's business.  He is a great one to figure out the best way to deal with evil.  In the meantime, we have access to His delightful rest in His word.