Where do you process pain?
Where do you seek wisdom?
When the big decisions that affect your life and the lives of those of those around you turn up, where do you go? Who do you turn to?
Psalm 79 is Asaph’s heart calling to a apparently ‘out to lunch’ God after it seems the cries of a nation have fallen on deaf ears. Worse still, it seems their refuge and hope has turned against them and chosen to bat for the opposition.
So Asaph spits it out: where have you gone, God? Why have you turned against us? Come on. Weren’t we singing ‘You are my strength, strength like no other’ just last week? Where did You go? You’re famous for helping…help us now. Go on, it will make You look good and we’ll be Your best friends forever. (He he, nice strategy, Asaph)
Here’s what I notice about Asaph: he knows who to whinge to.
Here’s what I notice about all of us: the places we go looking to reconcile our past, or to seek direction, or to direct our woes and our whinging, say a lot about where we head for hope.
In the same way that bank statements are a living theological testimony to your priorities and what you hold dear, your response in pain and discouragement says plenty. Your response in times of lack and abundance or in times when, like Asaph, there just seems a big question mark prowling after you, speak volumes about where you head.
Where do you process pain?