HOPE IN SPITE OF HOPELESSNESS

HOPE IN SPITE OF HOPELESSNESS

Psalm 42:10-11 "My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, "Where is your God?" 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."

Life is full of questions. Some have simple answers and others become more complicated and it seems like there is no answer in sight. Sometimes the solutions seem to be farther than we have time to run. I often wondered how our people did it back in the days when the old ways were fast disappearing and all that seemed precious to them was quickly becoming extinct. I wonder what my elders thought as they saw things like their language dying out. When people were either afraid or embarrassed to speak the words that were given to us by God the Creator. The language disappearing meant that the songs would no longer be sung because the words were gone. As the songs disappeared, so went the ceremonies that would no longer be practiced, and so the worship was now gone. So with the worship gone, their gratitude to God the Creator who created all we have and all we are began to disappear. I'm sure as they saw their way of life quickly disappearing, many questions came to their hearts and minds and they even wondered where God was and why He was not answering their pleas.

I wonder if this the way David felt when he wrote, "My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, "Where is your God?" It was a time when even God felt so far away. A time when his enemies taunted him continually and mocked the God and Creator he loved. But at the end, we must remember that no matter how bad things get, God is still there and He is still working in our lives. David concluded, "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." He searched his inner self and concluded that no matter how bad things got and no matter how hopeless the situation would seem, his hope would still stand strong before the Lord. His hope was still in the living God who was his Savior and his God.

Robert Soto, Lipan Apache and pastor