Hope In God For The Downcast and Disturbed - October 5, 2010

Daily Lectionary For October 5, 2010
Psalm 42
Hosea 7:8-16
Acts 23:12-24
Luke 7:1-17

Psalm 42
Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God. (v.5)
I'm not feeling particularly downcast today - just the opposite really as it's a beautiful, nearly flawless fall day outside; a great day in the best season of the year - so probably a good day to think about the logic of this verse as opposed to the feeling of this verse.  When I do feel downcast - I think when most of us feel downcast - it's no easy trick to move past to the postive spot described in this verse.  Yet even when life is bleak and it's not a perfect fall day outside the underlying foundational truth is that God is with us and will not abandon us.  Need to save a bit of this day and access it, and this verse, on one of the more challenging ones.

Luke 7:1-17
After healing a centurion's servant Jesus travels to a town called Nain.  As Jesus is arriving a funeral procession is making its way out of the town, a crowd of folks surrounding a grieving mother who has lost her only son.  "When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, 'Don't cry.'" (v.13)  An extraordinary window into the heart of God.  In our moments of despair and grief, uncertainty and loss, God's heart goes out to us as well.  A reminder that we don't navigate this life alone, but that, amazingly God has come to us and walks with us and at just the moment we reach our lowest ebb (when our soul is downcast and disturbed within us for instance) the heart of God aches for us.  And beyond that ministers to us.