Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Knowing God in the Unknown | The Writings | Psalm 102

Episode Date: August 27, 2024

Do the unknowns of life ever keep you up at night? Do you struggle to trust that God hears your prayers? Are you bottling up your anxiety? In today's episode, Tanya looks at Psalm 102 and reminds us that we have a Father who holds our future in His hands. 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 102

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 Tanya Wilmeth. I wonder, how did my parents sleep in the 90s when they had no idea where I was? There was no Life 360, no find your iPhone, not even a cell phone text to update with my ETA. We were just out. Living our lives until we came home and turned off the lamp in the hallway, that indicated we were safe and home in our warm beds. And then after going to college, forget it.

My parents had no idea. But I think they slept just fine. Probably better than we do now with all the information at our fingertips. I'm so used to knowing where my kids are. I hardly know what to do when I don't. I just suffered through one, and I mean only one, sleepless night while my oldest was out of pocket on a trail in a national park. This should not send me over the edge.

But it does. I think we have so much information, we feel like we're in control. Of all the things I've been through in my life, the not knowing phase is always the hardest. Not knowing the diagnosis. Not knowing the whereabouts. Not knowing the whole story. Not knowing the future. It's like I feel like I can handle anything as long as I know what it is.

Not knowing is when I lose my appetite, when I can't sleep, and when I feel like I need to bottle inside because I don't have the words to express to someone else what I'm feeling or what I need. But Psalm 102 is a lament of articulated emotion, and all aspects of suffering are depicted from sleepless nights and loss of appetite to loneliness, physical weakness, even signs of depression. Psalm 102 gives those of us who tend to bottle things inside words to express how we feel and talk to God. The psalmist here feels isolated like he thinks no one will understand. He doesn't feel safe to share his burden with someone else. He maybe doesn't even know how.

He laments that he doesn't know the future. He grieves the hopelessness of his day. He feels like his life and his plans are being cut short. Where do you turn when you feel this way? What's your go-to? When you're anxious, when you're worried, when you're bored, when you're depressed, when you're isolated? do you turn to something that maybe makes you feel more empty? Do you turn to something that lures you in and makes it promise,

but it turns out that it doesn't fulfill? Maybe the writer of this Psalm has been there too, but right now he craves something better. We all need Psalm 102 because we're either going to feel this way and we're going to need to be able to enter into this kind of emotional pain with someone who does. Psalm 102 is a gift because of the way it shows us we can always talk to our father. Lord, hear my prayer, listen to my plea, don't turn away from me in my time of distress,

bend down to listen and answer me quickly when I call to you. Now, in this conversation, there's an intimacy between the writer and God. The Lord Yahweh, it's a name that reminds us that God is the creator, and sustainer of all that exist, but he bends down to hear. The writer isn't afraid to ask God to come quickly to listen to his call. I love these verses because this request doesn't minimize God at all. It reminds us that God, Yahweh, the I am, as he referred to himself before Moses, is present with us when we call out to him. But this almost doesn't just want God to answer. He wants the assurance that God is bending over to listen to him.

He wants the comfort of God's presence. Is this the way you picture God listening to you? The I am bending over to hear your prayer. Now, we don't get specific details about what was happening before this or what the struggle really is. I mean, before this prayer, this almost might have been nonchalant about his relationship with God. I sure have been. Before this prayer, the psalmist might have been taking God's presence for granted.

I sure do. Before this prayer, the psalmist might have been doing something completely disobedient without even caring. I sure have. But in this moment of clarity, he doesn't want to experience life without the presence of the Lord. He doesn't want to know what that is like. And he has the assurance that he doesn't have to. Psalm 102 is a gift because it helps us see that we are not alone. The psalm says, For my days disappear like smoke, and my bones burn like red hot coals. My heart is sick, withered like grass,

and I've lost my appetite. Because of my groaning, I'm reduced to skin and bones. I'm like an owl in the desert, like a little owl in a far-off wilderness. So we find out that either because of something he's done or something that's been done to him, the writer knows the feeling of sickness, of nausea, of isolation, of despair, loneliness. He knows what it feels like to have your life taken off course. We need this Psalm because we need to be reminded that when we pray, we're never alone.

Others have gone before us on this path, and more importantly, Jesus has gone before us. see before Psalm 1 or 2 was ever a prayer or will ever be a prayer of yours or mine, this was a prayer of Jesus. There's a point at the end of this Psalm where the speaker shifts. It has been the psalmist writing and lamenting, but starting in verse 25, we understand that these verses are no longer spoken by the afflicted one, but by the I am, the eternal God, making a promise to his son. It says, long ago, you laid the foundation of the earth and made the heavens with your hands. They will perish, but you remain forever. They will wear out like old clothing.

You will change them like a garment and discard them. But you are always the same. You will live forever. The children of your people will live in security. Their children's children will thrive in your presence. See when Jesus prayed in the garden, Not my will God, but yours? He knew what was before him.

He had already faced the rejection of his peers. He knew his days with the disciples that he loved were coming to an end on earth. He knew the suffering that was before him on the cross. He knew the sins of the people he came to save. He knew he would be rejected for a time by his father while he carried the punishment for those sins. And he also knew this Psalm. that the cross before him was the way for you and me to have the assurance of God's presence in our times of suffering and the knowledge of eternal security when we have anxiety or worry

about what today and tomorrow has in store for us. When we read this Psalm, we enter into a bigger story. We get to see how the Creator was willing to come to Earth as our humble rescuer. We get to see that the hard life he lived had eternal purpose. We get to see that the hard life he lived had eternal purpose. We get to see that the things that matter today aren't that relevant in God's big plan for all of creation. We get to place our plans and our worries into the bigger scope of God's sovereign control. Are you worried?

Are you anxious? Does it feel heavy to live in the unknown? Like, where you'll be a year from now, what you'll have to go through between now and then. When we feel this way, we tend to keep it all bottled up inside ourselves. You know, that darkness, in a hotel room, when you pull the drapes shut and you don't know what time it is when you wake up the next morning? You wake up, you're confused, you're wondering where you are, and you can't see,

so you stumble around until you find the curtain. And then you pull those heavy drapes aside and light comes pouring into the room. That's what it's like when we ask our father to bend down. Come quickly. Listen to us. We pour out our hearts to him, and he reminds us that we are not alone. Don't try to work it out all by yourself. Galoshans 315 says, let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. Let the knowledge that God hears comfort your anxious heart. Let God's presence and peace flow into your thoughts like sunshine in a dark room.