Muse - Part 1

Psalm 77:1-2


"I cried out to God for help; I cried out to God to hear me."


When is the last time you cried...to God even, with your voice?  What did it feel like?  What does a crying of ones voice and tears intermingling, sound like?  Look like? I think of my little boy who is 4yrs. old, and what it looks like when he cries out from his place of pain, sadness...it's with abandon!  Who do you go to first when you feel that need?  Is it God?  


This speech pours forth great intention.  In the Amplified Bible it states it this way; "I will cry out..."; Intention that is unwavering.  Listen then to the faith he cry's out to God with; "He will give ear..."  


The Message version states it this way, "I yell out to my God, I yell with all my might, I yell at the top of my lungs.  He listens."


When is the last time we went to God even in our worst of moments, yelling out to Him, with such a conviction that we say, "He will give ear?"


What kind of relationship must one have with someone, to go crying, knowing the person WILL listen?  Do you have that kind of relationship with God?  Can you just go to Him and pour out of your soul, all that lives within?


V.2
"When I was in distress, I sought the Lord; at night I stretched out untiring hands and my soul refused to be comforted."


When I read this my heart paused...
              "refused to be comforted".  


What?...what is this saying?  I thought this was the point in life where the deep need, in such a place, is to be at least; comforted.  


But, it quickly resonated within me- re-reading this part again; 


"When I was in distress".... 


this really resonates.


I right now feel personally a bit in distress, and I began pondering the times past, I've been distressed, and needing to seek the Lord.  Nights of circumstance that overwhelmed me.  "Untiring hands", reaching up as my only hope to the Heavens. As I turn that over in my mind a bit, I resonate with the idea that sometimes, distress can be so overtaking that; comfort does not come.  Or, sometimes the need is so overtaking, that I dare not tire reaching and stretching up in need to the creator of the universe, for fear that if I do tire; the desperateness of that need- wouldn't be met.  Haven't you ever been in that place, where you just can't risk not being heard by God? Met by God? Delivered from such a place; that you don't relinquish easily?


Until...
V3.  "I remembered..."


I want to stop right there.  How long has it been since you remembered?  Not the pain, the hurts, "the chasm of consequences, circumstances", but really remembered...?


"You O God,...."  When IS...the last time you remembered the God of whom you were pouring out all to?  What is it you remember, if you do stop to do so?  Is it all that you feel He has not done, failed to hear, failed to reveal...


Or is it His unsurpassed enormity of grandeur of which no man can contain?

"And I groaned; I mused, and my spirit grew faint." Selah (this means to pause and think about that)


After the groan...he mused.  Muse: To meditate in silence, to turn something over in the mind meditatively, to wonder, marvel.  When is the last time we have done this?  Not groan, but muse before the Creator of the Universe?  Have we grown faint from such practice?  


I stop daily- several times a day at least; and just marvel at the handiwork's of creation. And I'm not even living in the majestic parts.  Central Ohio is certainly not...majestic by any means.  But it's captivating to me how at the edge of evening play; beneath the autumn ambiance of rustling leaves, scraped across the stretch of a western sky is a painted beauty above power lines and rooftops; that literally stop me in my tracks...utterly awed by the wonder of His creation.  And, I must honestly say...I'm just wired this way.  I can't help but find my gaze more often on the heights above, rather than on the mundane around me.  At least in my neighborhood. 


But before I breath my next breath, I'm challenged to take that awe dropping moment of beauty, and muse- at the possibility of such paintings midst my suffering. My distress. My pain.  I'm challenged to pause often.  Pondering at the wonder of His fingerprints; in the story line of my soul. My life. Just long enough- that my spirit might grow... 


faint.  


Will you pause with me?


Dear God,


It's been a long time for some, since they have cried.  It's been even longer since they have cried out; to You.  Some, the tears are seemingly, frozen.  For someone else, they won't stop.  For some...it's the only place they have found any hope.  And yet others, are still looking for hope.  God, please help those who need to cry...cry.  Help them feel your presence in the midst of the frozen tundra of the soul.  Melt away something of the fear that keeps them, unable to feel.  Lord, for the one who is raising untiring hands...refusing to be comforted, help them remember.  In their groaning's too deep for words, cause their spirit to marvel.  To turn over in it's sense of who You are, that before You, they might muse.  So that, they again might faint, at the beauty of who You are.