During 2025, Peachtree Church is focusing on the Book of Psalms with a series called Dwell, through which we seek to deepen our conversation with God and open ourselves to hearing his response. The practice of praying three times each day will unite the voices of our hearts and souls as we seek the day when we will see the full realization of the Kingdom of God, promised in Revelation 21:3: “…Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.”
We will email devotionals twice weekly with Monday’s providing an overview of the Psalm as a whole, and Wednesday’s focused on that week’s Daily Dwell.
I will declare your name to my people; in the assembly I will praise you. You who fear the LORD, praise him! All you descendants of Jacob, honor him! Revere him, all you descendants of Israel! For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.
Psalm 22:22-24
I have had breakfast with a group of guys every Monday morning for about 19 years. We meet, we eat, we mercilessly pick on one another (that’s what guys do to show affection), we study the Bible together, and we have walked with one another through just about every experience of life.
When we were discussing Psalm 13, I posed this question to them, which I think fits well with Psalm 22 as well. What is the most painful, difficult, disorienting experience of your adult life?
I anticipated the answers, because after 19 years I know these guys. We talked about the sudden and unexpected deaths of parents, cancer diagnoses, and the loss of a wife. We have been with one another through so much of this.
But I followed this up with another question: How, in the midst of, or after the experience, did you encounter God?
To a person, these guys talked about finding God’s presence with them in the midst of these harrowing times of life. We sat around, wondering how people who do not have a close relationship with God can make it. I suggested that while we would not choose to have had these experiences, they drew us closer to God. We became better. People who reject God, or do not walk closely with him regularly, sometimes become bitter instead of better.
Whatever the Psalmist was going through in the first half of this Psalm—and it had to have been just gosh-awful—he came through it, and his voice broke forth in praise! Rather than enfold himself in grief, he responded by joining with the people of God to worship and praise him.
Our faith in God, our worship of him, transforms our pain and grief into praise and joy!
For Reflection
- What is the most painful, difficult, disorienting experience of your adult life?
- How, in the midst of, or after the experience, did you encounter God?
- How will you respond to the goodness of the Lord this day, and this coming Sunday?
Prayer
Father, thank you for promising to never leave me or forsake me. Thank you for walking beside me in the most difficult moments of my life, and for carrying me when I was unable to walk. Free my soul to praise you today, and help me to join my voice with those in the assembly this weekend! In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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Devotionals