For I Shall Again Praise Him

The psalmist is enduring oppression and persecution, taunted for his faith in a seemingly absent God, and where does his mind turn? To the gathering of God’s people to worship. He reminisces of walking to the temple in procession shouting and singing together with the voice of a multitude. And yet he is unable to be there. From far away, the land of Jordan and of Hermon, he longs to be in Jerusalem gathered with the people of God, so much that it feels as though he’s drowning beneath waves and waterfalls.

I never really knew how to identify with this psalm until March 22. Now I get it. I know what it feels like to ache for the gathering of the church. Maybe you can relate. Maybe you felt the same way. Maybe you still do. There are countless churches that even still are unable to meet together, and many among our own congregation are still unable gather with us on Sunday mornings, and for good reason. A livestream is better than nothing, but it’s no replacement for the real thing.

This is because church isn’t a building for which you can see a video of what happens within its walls. Neither is it a content to be produced and consumed. The church is a people, called out from the world and gathered in the name of Jesus. It is we who “like living stones are being built up into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5). We as a people are being built into the house of God, that he may dwell in us and that we may together be the center of his worship as was the temple of the old covenant.

Scattered and disjointed from one another we may find ourselves in despair; soul downcast and in turmoil. But when we gather together we are a microcosm of the Kingdom of God, a part, a picture of the whole as it will be in eternity: God’s people living in relationship with him. Our gathering is a sanctuary from worldly troubles where we experience rest in the expression of our relationship with a God who gives of himself to his people. Because that’s what our worship really is. Even when we giving of ourselves, our sacrifice of praise, we are receiving from God, because he doesn’t actually need anything from us. He doesn’t need our praises, but he knows that we need to give ourselves to him.

And so it’s in the gathering of believers, the company of the saints, that we are reminded we are not alone, that God has not forgotten us. Hope in God; for you will again praise him, your salvation and your God.

Instead of reflection questions and a written prayer. Read this psalm again and pray it as your own prayer. If you find that you can’t relate, think of someone you know who may feel alone, isolated, and cut off. Pray the psalm for them.