Misplaced Alarm (Psalm 31:22)

 


Monday, May 12, 2025


Psalm 31

Exodus 24

John 11:1-16


Misplaced Alarm (Psalm 31:22)


I had said in my alarm,
    “I am cut off from your sight.”
But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy
    when I cried to you for help.


You may or may not know this, but currently the entire Australian Anglican church is celebrating what is called “Hope 25”, where every single parish across the nation has been encouraged to put on some sort of witness to the hope we have in Jesus Christ.


Since we like to define Anglican beliefs through what we pray, it seems right that we turn to the prayer book of the Bible – the book of Psalms. Today’s Psalm is a corker when it comes to describing what it feels like to be a person of hope in a fallen world.


There are so many reasons that get thrown up in our lives to discourage our hope. Our eyes can become wasted with grief; our years spent with sighing and sorrow; our strength fails, and our bones waste away. In our hasty alarm we find ourselves saying we are cut off from our Lord.


Yet our hope remains. The hope that, one day, we will be raised from this mortal body and be made like Jesus, glorious and immortal. We are not yet glorified and perfect, but flashes of that glorious perfection burst through here and there in our lives, more often than we like to give credit for.


Every time we find ourselves not only acting according to our Lord’s commands, but actually enjoying it, we should stop and pay attention. Because that is a moment given to us by the Holy Spirit to encourage us to keep going. One day we will be like Jesus completely; and in the here and now, we are being given proof upon proof that that day is coming.


We humans are so short-sighted. We get so easily distracted, and we are so forgetful. But the Lord hears the voice of our pleas for mercy when we cry to him for help, and he always answers, because he knows what we are like, and he is pleased to comfort and sustain us.


What reasons do you currently have to worry that the Lord has cut you off from his sight? What reasons do you currently have to know that the Lord is hearing your voice? How might you guard yourself from hasty alarm in the future?


Lord, you preserve the faithful and hear the voice of those who cry to you for help: reveal to us the abundance of your goodness which you have stored up for those who fear you, that we who wait upon you may take courage in this transitory life.

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