transcending trouble

Your righteousness, O God,

reaches the high heavens.

You who have done great things,

O God, who is like you?

You who have made me see many troubles and calamities

will revive me again;

from the depths of the earth

you will bring me up again.

Psalm 71:19-20

These two verses are strangely paralleled in a song of praise. They capture the tension that a life lived long with God will inevitably come to know. On one hand, we praise God for His transcendent and unique holiness. Only God is God. Only He is truly righteous. And His power and might are displayed to us. We worship His majesty, power, holiness, and glory. No one is like God.

And then, on the other hand, God will bring us to experience difficulties. Yes, we worship a transcendent God. But we also live in a broken world. And so God may lead us to know trouble and hardship as we experience our sin-marred lives. He calls us to trust and worship Him even as difficulties and tragedies hit our lives and leave us whirling emotionally and spiritually. We need God’s transcendence even more in the depths of such suffering. Thankfully He is still the God of wonders even as we live in a world of blunders!

O Lord,

I have seen, and continue to see, many troubles and calamities in a world that You are still going to make new. Yet even in these hardships, You are better… perfect… and powerful! You revive the soul overwhelmed in crisis. You raise me from the depths of difficulty to again praise Your greatness! And in the tension there is great glory given to You for Your works of power. Thank You for being great, even in the grittiness and grime of rough times!

Amen