150 Days in the Psalms--Psalm 129

Good Morning Everyone!

We are in Psalm 129 this morning.  It has in my Study Bible the subtitle of "Song of Victory over Zion's Enemies.  I really liked verse 4, so I recorded that one in my notebook:

"The LORD is righteous; He has cut in pieces the cords of the wicked."  Psalm 129:4

We do not normally go around using terms such as "cut in pieces the cords of the wicked," so I looked up in a second study Bible to see if they had any notes on this verse.  It did--I was looking in the Andrews University Study Bible on p. 774, and it said that this term meant "breaking the cords, being free from them.  The enemies did not prevail, the psalmist suffers no more affliction, shackles, or bondage."

This started me thinking--how many times in the Bible are there recorded stories where it SEEMS like evil is overcoming God's people?  Or actually, where evil DOES overcome God's people?  Where was God then?  Where was the cutting in pieces the cords of the wicked?

I thought about Joseph thrown into a pit--then in bondage, and later in prison.  Yet God delivered him and in the end even Joseph testified that his brothers meant it for harm, but God meant it for good.  What a huge blessing Joseph being in Egypt was--not only did it literally save the lives of his own starving family, but the lives of the entire nation who benefited from Joseph's plan (that God gave him) to save up the extra food during the years of plenty so they would have it in the years of famine.

And then there was Daniel.  Dragged off to a foreign and heathen country as a youth.  Living a loyal and upright life to end up where?  In the lion's den!  Doesn't sound like God was protecting him and cutting the cords of the wicked!  And yet--God closed the lion's mouths, and the king of that land saw that Daniel's God was the only true God.

But what about when a story doesn't have a "happy ending?"  What about John the Baptist?  He preached, doing what God called him to do, and how does it end?  With his head on a platter!  Yuck!  And poor John!  Betrayed by his God!  Or was he?  Did not death both remove him from the hands of the wicked, as well as provide a powerful witness to those around him?  Is he not promised "For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.  After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.  And so we will be with the Lord forever."?  (1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17)

Maybe, just maybe, when we look at a situation and lament that it did NOT turn out as it should have, maybe the story isn't done yet?  Maybe we need to hang on until the end of the book--the end of the story here on earth--and we will see what God has worked out?

Something I am thinking about this morning. . .

~Susan