Psalm 44 - Humbled

My dad grew up being taken to church by his parents. The Bible was an important book in family life and church was a formative part of weekly routine. But while my dad grew up knowing about God he didn’t know God in a personal way. Choices, ambitions, attitudes were shaped and formed by things other than God.

On Sunday 19^th May, 1957, there was an ‘Evangelistic Campaign’ being held in Scrabo Housing Estate in Newtownards where my dad, his brother and their parents lived. I don’t know what was in his mind as he made his way into that tent, a 21 year old, with life stretching out ahead of him, but that night he heard a challenge. The evangelist spoke on a verse from Joshua 24:15: ‘Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve … as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.’  

That night my dad placed his trust in God and in His word, he walked into that tent his own boss, he walked out a servant of Jesus Christ.

I identify with teh Psalmist's words in Psalm 44:1 ‘We have heard it with our ears, O God; our ancestors have told us what you did in their days, in days long ago.’ I grew up not only learning the stories of the Bible, but hearing personal stories of God’s faithfulness and trustworthiness in the lives of people I knew, people who had gone before me. 

Each generation has to choose for itself, each person has personal decisions to make. Will I choose to serve the LORD? The writer of Psalm 44 writes not just as someone who has learnt about God but as someone who has made his own choices to trust in God and live by His word. 

‘But now’ (vs 9) life is tough for this beleiving person, to the point where he feels rejected and humbled by God. The former generation has passed away, he’s standing on his own feet and he feels alone and vulnerable. This cry for the LORD to ‘awake’ (vs 23) has echoes of the disciples crying out to Jesus as He slept in the middle of a terrible and threatening storm ‘Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?’ (Mark 4:38).

Psalm 44 ends with a phrase that is a rock that every succeeding generation can stand on. It’s the phrase ‘unfailing love’. The message of the Bible is that God’s love for his people, from generation to generation never fails. It is a love that takes God to the cross. Even though sometimes we feel that God is asleep in our troubles, we can know that He is there, we are safe with Him and no situation, no circumstance is beyond His control (Mark 4:39-40).   

Prayer: Father help me today to choose to serve you. Help me to trust you. Thank you that your love never fails.