Trouble (Daily Encouragement)
I’m in trouble. I cry to God, desperate for an answer. – Psalm 120:1, The Message
The Psalms of Ascent give us a picture of the discipleship, the journey of following Jesus. It is a little startling, but makes sense, that the Psalms of Ascent start with descent. The journey of becoming and growing as a christian is to acknowledge the darkness, the trouble around us and in us. The first step in the christian journey is a dissatisfaction of where things are and an admission of need.
Such dissatisfaction with the world as it is is preparation for traveling in the way of Christian discipleship. The dissatisfaction, coupled with a longing for peace and truth, can set us on a pilgrim path of wholeness in God. A person has to be thoroughly disgusted with the way things are to find the motivation to set out on the Christian way. As long as we think the next election might eliminate crime and establish justice or another scientific breakthrough might save the environment or another pay raise might push us over the edge of anxiety into a life of tranquillity, we are not likely to risk the arduous uncertainties of the life of faith. A person has to get fed up with the ways of the world before he, before she, acquires an appetite for the world of grace. Psalm 120 is the song of such a person, sick with the lies and crippled with the hate, a person doubled up in pain over what is going on in the world. But it is not a mere outcry, it is pain that penetrates through despair and stimulates a new beginning—a journey to God that becomes a life of peace. – Eugene Peterson
In what ways have you seen or experienced “being fed up with the ways of the world” which wetted your appetite for “the world of grace”?