Beloved, are you praising God or are you struggling? Psalm 108-109 show us the opposing sides of life’s coin. Together they teach this principle: in all of life we must be God centered and focused.

How often do we quote Psalm 23 and invoke its beauty and add that to our repertoire of prayers as we begin our day. We fall in love with Jesus as we “sing and praise with our whole heart. [vs 1] We encourage ourselves with vs 2 “I will wake up at dawn.” We evoke the words of vs 4 “your lovingkindness is great above the heavens.”  BUT then… life interrupts and we are faced with those intimidating circumstances. What then? The imprecatory Psalm 109 is one of the strongest and it flies in the face of what we say is so unChristlike. But, there are valuable lessons to be gleaned from Psalm 109 and it is this:  Heart preparation is key to all of life; whether life is sunny times or stormy.

God has left these psalms to teach us how to face all of life. We are to praise Him for His majesty and his lovingkindness. But we are also to seek his face when things go awry and life is so very very hard. Psalm 108 begins “I am determined” and Psalm 109 ends with “I will greatly praise the Lord.” Take heart Beloved; God loves us with an everlasting love in the sunny times and in the stormy times.

Photo: David Hanlon Dreamstime.com + added thoughts