God Almighty

Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 1-169 Sunday 30 Sep 2001

Reading: PSALM 80 – RESTORE US, O LORD GOD ALMIGHTY

(From ‘Encounter with God’ Bible Reading Notes)

‘The raw, desperate cry of honesty penetrates the heavens immediately; the answer definitely will come – it is just the mode of transport which is not guaranteed … But be sure – the answer is coming!’ (Rachel Hickson).

Once again God’s people have found themselves in severe difficulty. Defeat has left them defenceless against their enemies, who mock them in their vulnerability. This has caused them great grief and sorrow ‘tears by the bowlful’ (v 5). They know their history: they know how God protected and cared for his people in the past, but now he seems to have abandoned them. This is the worst thing that could possibly happen.

Prayer is little comfort, for the only response to their prayers seems to be God’s smouldering anger. All they can do is cry out to God for help. Three times they pray virtually the same prayer (vs 3,7,19), differing only in the increasing intensity with which they address God. The prayer is for God to restore them, and to show them his favour once again. The restoration for which they are pleading is not just for the physical damage: it is also spiritual restoration. They long for God to bring them back to himself.

Maybe their experience of God’s anger made them afraid to come back to him, or maybe they simply felt unable to turn to him in their own strength. They knew they needed his help. Without him life was very different from the old days when they were so aware of his presence.

We all go through phases in our Christian lives when God seems far away, and when we feel that we have lost the spiritual vitality we once had. Maybe we feel afraid that God is angry with us, or we may simply not know what to do. But God longs for us to turn back to him, and ask to be restored in his love. Then, in love, he runs to embrace us, as the waiting father welcomed home the prodigal son. (See Luke 15:20-24)

Do you need God’s restoration? Take some time to tell him what you long for.

– Rosemary Linton

Copyright Scripture Union, 2001