“From this day on I will bless you” Haggai 2:19 (NIV)
It says in Psalm 30:5 “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning”.
The future is so hard to see in this life. The apostle Paul properly said that we look through a glass “darkly”. The remarkable C.S. Lewis said words to the effect that life must be lived looking forward but can only be understood looking backwards. In many respects this is so true and is one explanation why we sometimes stumble in life. If only we had known this or that was going to happen we would have altered our plans to accommodate the thing we otherwise did not see.
However, the verse for today does give God’s people a glimpse into their future estate. There may be various things come our way we did not wish and desire to be rid of, but a bedrock truth for us as followers of Jesus is that the ultimate future is glorious. It says in Psalm 30:5 “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning”.
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“the Lord will give grace and glory” Psalm 84:11
Two very rich and remarkable gifts are given to those who love the Lord. The Psalmist tells us an exceedingly great and precious promise. Look with me first at the matter of grace.
Grace addresses us as needy. Needy for what? Well Scripture teaches that the greatest need of any one of us is to have a right relationship with our Creator. We have no right, simply because we are humans, to the presence of God or His blessings. Not at all.
We are poor and needy and until we humble ourselves we cannot have the needed grace of God working in our lives. All of us need to come to our Creator and ask for His favour, His love, His forgiveness. All this is offered in Jesus the one who died for sinners and came back to life the third day.
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“The prayer of the upright is His delight” Prov. 15:8
When I was a preschooler my mother was usually the one who tucked me in at night. She taught me to kneel down beside the bed to pray before climbing in. I had memorized prayers taught by her and reciting them was a pleasant thing. Mother was a woman of prayer and exercised this gift for several hours each day of her very busy life. It was as natural to her as breathing.
Alas, she did not pass on that gene to me, her son. I sometimes find deliberate prayer a chore and hard work even though it is one of my responsibilities as a minister of the Gospel. How is prayer found to be a delight? What can we do to be joyful in this spiritual exercise and responsibility?
First, I believe we need to see the joy that our Father in heaven has in hearing our voices. The emotional life of God is not spoken of by many Bible expositors yet He chooses to use these “human” terms to describe Himself. God has “delight” in prayer. To Him it is a source of pleasure to hear our voices as we address Him with our expressions of worship, submission, and petition.
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“The Father of compassion [mercies] and the God of all comfort” 2 Cor. 1:3
When I was a preschooler I developed whooping cough and so did my older brother and younger sister. My Mother took care of my siblings and my father was responsible for me. I can recall one night of illness being held in his arms. Every time I coughed until I was sick he would be ever so gentle with me and sought to sooth my anxiety. My father was massive man whose powerful arms had been shaped by years of exercise as a farmer. As a child I believed he was the strongest man in the world.
During the night after I had a series of coughing spells I noticed something about my Father I had never seen before. Tears were running down his face. Somehow I sensed that those tears were for me though he did not speak. I continued to be ill through the night but the silent love expressed by my Father’s tears comforted me greatly and I felt safe as he held me close.
Here in our text we have a remarkable description of our heavenly Father. We are to see the Father as ever so loving and gentle with us. The first term means mercy or compassion and in the Bible there are two words often used for God’s action towards those who believe in Jesus.
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“the Lord has heard of your misery” Genesis 16:11
Hagar to whom this word was spoken had a miserable situation that threatened her very life and that of her unborn child. She had been severely mistreated and she fled into the desert. The Angel of the Lord came to her and spoke these wonderful words.
In Genesis 16:13 we clearly see that this Angel is God Himself. Many who comment on this scene believe it was an incarnation of Jesus Christ. I agree.
When Hagar has received the encouraging words from the Angel she named Him and said, “You are the God Who sees me.”
There can be tremendous comfort in our misery in the mere fact that God sees us. Hagar was told what God would do for her in her suffering and the knowledge helped. The fact is that sometimes the Lord does not reveal to us the reasons for our sorrow, nor the future prospects we have down the road.
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