by Pastor Douglas Brauner

Remembering God’s Faithfulness and Steadfast Love in Hard Times

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

If you stare at this hope sign for too long your stomach will start to churn. However, there’s no ignoring it. It screams HOPE. But why do we need a sign shouting HOPE?

The world is a mess. Our lives are a mess. Fear is rampant and not just over a virus: fear for our nation, fear for our families, fear for our lives. Often this fear is fed by what we choose to watch on television, listen to in podcasts, or view on YouTube.

Sometimes we feel hopeless.

“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.”
Psalm 42:5-6a English Standard Version

This refrain appears three times in Psalms 42 and 43 (two psalms that are often treated as one). There might be multiple reasons for your soul to be “cast down,” to be “in turmoil.” It might be things listed above or something completely different. Your sense of hopelessness may be rooted in a relationship that’s gone south, an investment that’s turned bad, a life change you didn’t see coming.

After calling his soul to “hope in God” the unnamed psalmist declares, “My soul is downcast within me,” probably not what we were expecting. We might have expected something more joy-filled, more peace-filled, more love-filled. In his condition of hopelessness the psalmist goes on to say, “therefore I  remember you…”

Isn’t that the key? We can’t escape the reality that our souls experience pain. It is in those moments that we need to remember, to look back at God’s faithfulness and steadfast love at work in our lives. It’s at those moments we need to remember the bloodied cross of Jesus, the proof of God’s love for us.

Though there may be things that cause our souls to be downcast, it is God’s gift of grace that penetrates our feelings of hopelessness.

Copyright Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado