“But then I recall all you have don, O LORD; I remember Your wonderful deeds of long ago. They are constantly in my thoughts. I cannot stop thinking about Your mighty works.” Psalm 77: 11-12
“Praise Him for His mighty works; praise His unequaled greatness!” Psalm 150:2
Whenever I read of the psalmist praising God for His mighty deeds, I tend to think about the timeless bible stories that happened thousands of years ago. God brought ten plagues down upon Egypt to pressure Pharaoh about releasing the Israelites. He split the Red Sea for them to walk on dry land. He caused the mighty walls of Jericho to fall even without catapults and trebuchets. He sent angels to fight Israel’s enemies who were greater in number and stronger in weaponry. The list goes on and on as God performed countless miracles for His chosen people.
I have also wanted to be like the psalmist, to grow closer and more intimate with God by remembering His mighty works and meditate on them. It is said that such a meditation can bring us strength when we are feeling down. However, I realized that no matter how much I try to be in awe of God based on those ancient miracles, I just cannot feel the same sense of bliss that the psalmist felt, because those blessings did not happen to me. I was trying to grow closer to God based on what He had done for others.
Because none of those earth-shaking works of God happened in my life, I thought that I could never meditate on God’s wonderful deeds as the psalmist did, and I thought I could never have such a dynamic encounter with God.
Suddenly, it struck my mind that I had missed the point altogether. God had indeed performed many wonderful deeds for me. Although they were not the sort of events that split the earth or rocked the heavens, they were miraculous enough to cause me to pause in wonder of His creativity, intelligence, humour, love, et cetera, and I still live to tell those tales today. I am what I am today because of what God has always been doing for me day by day. When God does something for us and it changes us to be more Christ-like, who can say that those deeds are smaller miracles as compared to another? When God moves, He does it so that we can live on to tell our stories to impact people’s lives.
It takes a heart that is hungry for God and always seeking after Him to be able to see God doing His wonderful deeds in her life. It takes a receptive spirit to be able to recognize that pleasant coincidences are blessings from God in answer to his prayers. The believer who understands these knows that God is with him through every step of his life and he can then be so blessed that he cannot stop thinking about God’s mighty works.
I do not deny that it is often easy to remember God’s deeds in my life and praise Him when I am well, but when I go through the doldrums, it would feel like God has stopped His wonderful works from flowing in for me. There were times when I felt downright upset with my life and people as the psalmist had felt when he wrote Psalm 77. He wrote:
“I cry out to God; yes, I shout. Oh that God would listen to me! When I was in deep trouble, I searched for the LORD. All night long I prayed, with hands lifted toward heaven, but my soul was not comforted. I think of God, and I moan, overwhelmed with longing for His help. You don’t let me sleep. I am too distressed even to pray! I think of the good old days, long since ended, when my nights were filled with joyful songs. I searched my soul and ponder the difference now. Has the LORD rejected me forever? Will He never be kind to me? Is His unfailing love gone forever? Have His promises permanently failed? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has He slammed the door on His compassion?” (Verses 1-9)
When we go through bad times and it is extremely difficult for us to recall God’s good works and worship Him, does it really mean that He had slammed the door on His compassion? Is He still working today as He did yesterday? Is God showing His displeasure to us for any fault of ourselves?
I personally find it extremely difficult to take comfort in good memories of how the LORD had blessed me when my mind is just filled with troubles, especially so when I have a particularly hard task before me. I would complain to God a lot and no matter how much I try to be more positive, I wouldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. What’s more, I wouldn’t even feel like praying! It seemed like the negative experience nullified God’s goodness because at that point in time, I just felt that He wasn’t good towards me.
However, as I stay open to God, and press on in the most difficult situations, I would learn many valuable things from Him as I emerge from the fight. God does not necessarily need to tell us why bad things happen to us when we cannot make sense out of them. He does not always rescue us from ordeals that we have to go through. But He is still at work in our lives even as we wallow in our pits of sorrow. It is only after going through an ordeal – no matter how brief or how long – when we will realize how God gradually unravels His plans for us. Then some of us might wonder as Job did when he said: “I know that You can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You. You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know…I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear. But now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:2-3, 5-6)
I like what Paulo Coelho had written about how God uses unpleasant things to do good works for His people. In the Manual of the Warrior of Light, he said:
“The warrior of light has learned that God uses solitude to teach us how to live with other people.
“He uses rage to show us the infinite value of peace. He uses boredom to underline the importance of adventure and spontaneity.
“God uses silence to teach us to use words responsibly. He uses tiredness so that we can understand the value of waking up. He uses illness to underline the blessing of good health.
“God uses fire to teach us about water. He uses earth so that we can understand the value of air. He uses death to show us the importance of life.”
Like Job, we will realize that God had been doing good works of strengthening our inner being during rough times so that we can be wiser, more resilient, and be more like Christ. Like the psalmist who wrote Psalm 77, we can remember the good things that God had done for us – we have to make a conscious effort to do so – and thus receive more strength by hoping in God and press on to fight the good fight of life. God will use our weakness to teach us to use the strengths He is placing in us. He will use rejection and coldness to teach us to appreciate friends and loved ones. He will use sickness to teach us to care for our bodies which are temples of His Holy Spirit. “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). God is always working in our lives.
September 3rd, 2010 by 
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