Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Are You Out Of Sync? | The Writings | Psalm 43

Episode Date: April 26, 2024

Psalm 43 offers Christians a way to recalibrate and reorient amidst a season of doubt and confusion. Are you ready to get back in sync with your faith? In today's episode, Jeff shares hope for when you feel disoriented. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Psalm 43

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jeff Parrott. So much of life and the journey of faith can be seasonal. There's seasons of thriving, but there are also seasons of drought. There's flourishing and faltering, growth and groaning. There can be rhythms of delight, but also rhythms of distraction or disappointment. Sometimes our ongoing seasons of difficulty, like the distraction, the disappointment,

they can even stretch into longer periods of time where life just feels out of sync compared to what it should be. Here's a big question. What should our posture be amidst those complex seasons when the rhythms of life are out of sync? Psalm 43 gives the people of God a posture to adopt while they experience these realities under the weight of exile, longing to be in the world. their forever home with their creator and Redeemer. I'm not sure what life is like for you as you listen to this. For many of you, this portion of the day or week or year might seem to be defined by those restless rhythms of distraction or disappointment. And with that reality in mind, I just want to slow down the rhythm of this moment and approach Psalm 43 with the posture of prayer. Heavenly Father,

thank you for the gift of life and breath and for your word. Jesus help us abide in you as we engage with your truth in this moment. Holy Spirit, we ask you to move in and through this time in Psalm 43. And as we read these words, let these words read us and restore us as individuals and also as your people. In Jesus' name, amen. Psalm 43 is a companion piece to Psalm 42. Most of you, scholars argue that these two Psalms actually fit together as a pair that help God's people persevere in seasons that are out of sync with the way that life should be. And one of the first things that we notice is how Psalm 43 uses questions to address the out-of-sync state of life that's been disoriented by circumstances. Versus one through two reveal how that disorientation

sometimes comes from the oppressive sin of other people. We read the starting in verse one. Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people from the deceitful and unjust man, deliver me. For you are the God in whom I take refuge. Why have you rejected me? Why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? That's some serious sin that the psalmist is experiencing against other people, from other people. The disorientation caused by circumstances don't seem to just be external, though. We see another layer added to this in verse 5. The psalmist says, why are you cast down, oh my soul? Why are you in turmoil within me? Here near the end of the psalm we see a kind of inner turmoil. Sometimes the disorientation,

the out-of-sync state, it comes from without, but sometimes it comes from within. One thing to highlight before we keep going is the power of asking ourselves questions. This is an approach seen in both Psalm 42 and Psalm 43, this pair. The psalmist uses questions to dig into the heart of disorientation. And this is really instructive for us today, because it's tempting to stay on the surface level when life is out of sync, to focus on the what of our circumstances. And while the psalmist certainly highlights the what, there's also a lot. there's also an ongoing process of asking why.

How often do you ask that question? Why? What would it look like for you to get into the heart of things by asking why when it comes to the things that are distracting or disappointing you? Some examples. Why am I so obsessed with checking my phone first thing in the morning and right before I go to bed at night? Why can I not stop thinking about that conversation?

at work or that comment from a friend, why am I dwelling on the fact that I missed that promotion or didn't perform as well as I wanted to on that exam? Why do I care so much about what people think about me? Psalms 42 and 43 give us a pattern to get to the heart of things, to evaluate the layer of our desires and our fears by asking the simple and powerful question, why. And this Psalm doesn't just guide us to reflect on our hearts. It also reorients our hearts. Look at verses 3 through 4. Send out your light and your truth. Let them lead me. Let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling. Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the liar. Oh God, my God. The words in these verses are what my friends

Cary calls rhythms of truth. They recalibrate. They reorient, refocus us. If sin causes life to be out of sync, these truth statements are like life-giving rhythms that meet us in times of disorientation, pointing us to what's really true. And I can't get over the sense of movement in the psalmist's language here. Send out your light and your truth. Let them lead me. Bring me. I will go. I will go. I will praise you. If you zoom out, there's really a flow of thought here. The reflection of asking why is meant to give us a posture that engages our heart's greatest desires and fears.

But then the rhythms of truth are meant to move toward us and move us toward God, our exceeding joy. And this reorientation toward God and movement toward God, it's a huge emphasis in Psalms 42 and 43. We see that in the repeated refrain from. both of them. We read it here at the end of verse five. Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. Okay. If this is true, then the end goal isn't simply escaping the wilderness. The end goal when life is out of sync is encountering God. We saw the same thing back in verse three, where the joy of the psalmist is not in changed circumstances, but in

God. My ultimate joy isn't found in what God gives me or what God changes in my life. My ultimate joy is in him. He's my refuge. He's my salvation. In times of disorientation, we can often attempt to find a quick escape hatch, a cheat code, a formula that will get us out of those seasons. Psalm 43 tells us that our ultimate aim isn't to find those spiritual hacks so we can escape the discomfort. The goal is actually to find God in the midst of the discomfort. And when we do that, we experience something better and bigger than comfort or control. We experience the movement of God's kingdom. As you go into the rest of this hour, this day, this week, ask, how can you adopt the

posture of Psalm 43. You can start by asking the question, why? Why do I want this? Why am I afraid of this? But don't just ask that question with yourself. Ask it with a friend, with a mentor, with a family member. But remember, there's a flow of thought. We don't just get to the heart of things. We're also reoriented. What would it look like for you to embrace the rhythms of truth found here and elsewhere in Scripture? One simple way to start is by adopting verse 3, as a breath prayer in times of disorientation. Build it into your life as an actual rhythm of truth. Just remember and pray, send out your light in your truth.

Let them lead me. When I'm afraid, when I'm disoriented, when I'm distracted and disappointed, God, send out your light and your truth. Let them lead me. Let them move me to you. The rhythms of truth here can be so meaningful for our personal lives, yet they also transcend our individual experiences in overflow, into our families and our friend groups,

our workplaces, schools, neighborhoods, entire communities. It doesn't just direct you and me to the loving presence of God. It directs the watching world to him as well. God, as we head into the rest of this hour, this day and this week, would you help us be the kind of people who ask why, to encounter you as we encounter our greatest desires and fears, to find our deepest joy in you. Send out your light and your truth.

Let them lead us as you make all things new in Jesus. Amen.