Deeper Longings with Jireh
5 May 2020
Hi, I’m Jireh, a member of the second congregation at RHC.
I’ve been encouraged recently by the morning mercies sessions that the pastors have been leading in this season. One morning Purch talked us through Psalm 33. He encouraged us to see that as we wait on the Lord, strength will be imparted to us. As I meditated on the psalm, what continued to resonate was the connection between hope and love in the last few verses.
Let me read from verses 18-22
18 Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love,
19 that he may deliver their soul from death and keep them alive in famine.
20 Our soul waits for the LORD; he is our help and our shield.
21 For our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name.
22 Let your steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us, even as we hope in you. - Psalm 33:18-22
I wondered how it is that I can wait in hope and how it is that God gives us strength while we wait. I realised that since before the circuit breaker started I’d been living with what might be called low grade blues. I felt resigned to not finding joy, a kind of malaise, as Singaporeans say, I was feeling sian.
It happened that the week we looked at Psalm 33 marked 9 years since a significant event in my life happened. Nine years ago that week, on a trip up to north eastern japan in the aftermath of a massive tsunami, in a dark parking lot of a chain restaurant, I met and shook hands with the man I would eventually marry. Something on my social media reminded me of this and I began to recall the events of that week. I don’t need to go into all the details but suffice to say that even in what felt like a post apocalyptic world, God had still ordained for his children to meet and fall in love.
If you have ever been in love, you’ll know the feeling that swells in your heart. It’s not just warm affection but a kind of daring hope. And this hope is often coupled with courage because it takes courage to believe that someone might love you back. It takes courage to fight off real fear, of disappointment or rejection, of being fully known. As the psalmist suggests, love and hope are intimately intertwined.
It is a human desire to know that there is hope in the midst of suffering, whether big or small. That waiting brings about good fruit. As I recalled the events in my life 9 years ago, I realised that the thrilling sense of hope I felt when I fell in love is but a shadow of the hope that we have in Christ. Christian hope is certain in a way that no other human hope can be. What Simon preached about over Easter weekend suddenly came alive to me. Christian hope is certain because we already have a deposit of what is promised, we have no doubt that God will accomplish what is good for us personally as well as in all creation, and that nothing can separate us from God’s steadfast love. This is a love that we already have and can experience now. I began to see that because the Lord’s love never fails, that gives me courage to hope in him, to help me bear fruit as I wait for this to be over, to trust that even though there is a lot of grief around us, he is working to restore creation to glory, that he will return for us and we will one day be free of sin and sickness.
I’m going to pray through psalm 33 now, and as I pray I hope it will encourage you to ask God to give you the courage to hope in him, for his steadfast love is already yours because of what Christ has done for us.
Dear Lord I thank you, that you are an upright and righteous God. That the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord. How fickle we are that we forget this, turning our eyes to the weariness of the world around us. Help us, Lord, to see you rightly, let us stand in awe of you once again, the Lord who looks down from heaven and sees all the children of man, the Lord who brings the counsel of the nations to nothing and frustrates the plans of the people.
Help us, Lord, to fear you rightly, and to rejoice that you have made us part of the nation of people whom you have chosen as your heritage, that the one by whose words the heavens were made keeps his eye on us.
Help us oh Lord to hope in you rightly. Give us once again a true sense of your steadfast love for us, help us to hope in this love that makes all things right. Help us not to diminish the magnitude of your love for us in our hearts. Help us to know that our hope is in you, Christ our sure and steady anchor.
We know Lord how we fail to hope in you. We see how we struggle to maintain peace with those we are in isolation with, we know the irritated thoughts in our hearts about the ones we should be showing your love to, we too often have complaints about what you have withheld from us instead of recognising the many good things that you have blessed us with. Remind us once again that you are our help and shield, that your steadfast love is upon us.
Give us the courage to hope in you, that you are at work, redeeming our sinful thoughts about our loved ones, restoring the relationships that we are forced to confront during this season. Give us the courage to hope in you, that you will build our faith and open our eyes glimpse the promise that you have given that all things will be restored to you one day, that the eyes of our hearts would be enlightened, that we may know what is the hope to which you have called us, the riches of your glorious inheritance in the saints. We know this will be so, because the word of the LORD is upright, and your work is done in faithfulness. Because you love righteousness and justice; help us once again to see that the earth is full of the steadfast love of the LORD.
Amen