Psalm 102

What does God have for us in the day of our most severe distress? What does He have for us after that day is over in a life that can never be the same?

He lets us call upon His Name. Even when we cannot feel Him near us, we can cry out to Him.

The Lord does not expect us to embark on some fake spiritual hypocrisy when we face trials. We are supposed to feel.

We can tell Him all about it. The physical pain, the inability to eat, the groans and yells that we never heard come out of our mouths before, the loneliness, the sleeplessness, the anger at other people, our tears, our sense that even God has something against us, and our withering away in body and soul – we can bring all this to Him.

But then what? What do we do when we have had enough emoting before the Lord about our own distress, at least until tomorrow?

We can turn to Him again. We can remember that there is someone on the other end of our cries. How is He today?

He tells us. He is sitting on His throne in heaven today, since He is enthroned forever. He is the Almighty One who is remembered forever by His beloved children on high, and by His people here below who call upon His Name.

He is teaching. We are learning. We are finding out how to worship Him in a time of great loss. He is training us to delight ourselves in Him with the trust that He will give us the desire of our hearts.

He is a God of perfectly-timed action. He has compassion on us and will come to us at the appointed time. If He does not rescue us with more life on earth it is only because He has determined to give us life in heaven today, for He has surely won heaven for us by the work of His Son.

We love even the stones of the heavenly temple. In fact, the Lord is building us up to be His temple. We are living stones, built on the one Cornerstone in Zion, the church's one Foundation. We love one another. When we are finished weeping to God today, and we turn our attention to how our heavenly Father is doing, we can serve each other.

The Lord gets up at the appointed time and has pity on Zion. Maybe we can get up and have pity on His beloved sons and daughters. The Lord appears in glory and builds up Zion. Maybe the time has come for us to come in all our borrowed glory, and to build up the body of Christ, comforting others with the comfort with which we have been comforted. The Lord hears the poor. Maybe we can too, and bring help to them out of our own poverty.

This psalm was recorded for you! It says so. “Let this be recorded for a generation to come.” That's us. We can praise Him. He hears us. He will set us free, eventually from all affliction, but even now from endless self-focus that will only hurt us.

Even if we die in pain and despair, we will awaken to life in the presence of the One who made the heavens and the earth. How is He today? How are His people? How can we love them here, now?

Today is the day to do just that. And then one day you will go off to where he is, where you, your children, and even their offspring “shall be established” in His presence. He said that.