Psalm 89: When it seems like God has broken His promises.

by Peter Roxburgh

Psalm 89 (NIV)

"BUT you are not doing any of those things you said you would do - if anything you have done quite the opposite. You have rejected us, we are broken, we are a laughing stock, you have not supported us and you have covered us with shame. Where, is your great love that you swore to us????"

Ever felt a little like that? This is my paraphrase of Ethan's lament (vs 38-51) which comes after he has spent 18 verses recounting to God all the things that God promised to David and his line - promised to establish Davids throne forever, promised to protect and sustain, promised to be faithful to them.

There are and there will be times in our lives when we will look at the promises of God and look at our current circumstances and see a massive discrepancy. It will look like God has failed to keep his promises, worse still, it seems that he has done quite the opposite of what He promised.

From where Ethan was standing it looked like God had completely forgotten his covenant to the line of David. But from where we stand today, we know that God did not forsake his promises to establish forever the line of David. In fact, he fulfilled those promises in a way that no-one could ever imagine!

The reminder to us is that our field of vision is very limited. We can not see the future and we do not know the incredible ways in which God can fulfil his promises. But what we do know, and this Psalm reminds us, is that God WILL fulfil His promises to us.

I know I have to challenge myself from this. There have been specific words spoken over my life that are far bigger than I can see being fulfilled in the natural. And I can and do easily dismiss or even just park them in the very recesses of my heart.

But reading this Psalm and knowing what we know about how God did fulfil his promises, I have to remind myself to trust in God to fulfil all his promises to me. Sure, I need to be open to them, work towards them, but no matter how far away they may seem, I must constantly remind myself that God does not ever break His promises to us - even if what we see right now tells us quite the opposite.

If all we see is our circumstances right now, God would have us turn our gaze and our trust back to Him. He has promised to never leave us or forsake us. And as Ethan and the house of David know, He did not break His promise to them and He will never break His promises to you.

Until we do see those promises fulfil, the best thing we can do is copy Ethan when he concludes this lament with:

"Praise be to the Lord forever! Amen and Amen." (vs 52)