“Sing praise to the Lord, you saints of His, and give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name. For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning ” (Psalm 30:4, 5).
Holy Father, You who have seen our tears in the midnight hour, and have dried them for us; help us never to forget that You also gives us songs in the night, and wakes us up to mornings of joy! We praise Your holy name upon the merits of Jesus Christ Your Son and our Savior. Amen!
I am going to be sharing this text in a manner that I have never shared it before. But as the Spirit impresses, I will share. There are so many messages packed into every verse in the Bible, that we can never exhaust them. So let us receive them, enjoy them, and learn from them!
Don’t you just love the sound of this declaration: “His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life“? I can’t talk for everyone, but as for me, it gives me so much hope!
With human beings, it is usually the other way around; We hold on to the anger for years, but the favor is for a fleeting moment. I am so glad that our ways are not God’s ways! Aren’t you?
Who better than the psalmist David to testify of this characteristic of God, “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy.
He will not always strive with us, nor will He keep His anger forever” (Psalm 103:8, 9, emphasis supplied).
That is what makes the weeping short-lived, because so is the striving; it lasts just long enough for us to learn the lesson. As human beings our striving becomes nagging, until the lesson to be learned, is lost in discouragement!
How many relationships could be redeemed if only we would learn from the Lord to be “slow to anger, and abounding in mercy.” This is a lesson that I am daily pleading with the Lord to help me to learn.
The Lord goes even further. There are times that instead of anger He is overcome with pity for His erring children. Remember Peter? He so wanted to be faithful to His Master, but instead, he denied Him! That was when Jesus’ amazing grace came to Peter’s rescue, in the form of a look of love!
“And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how He had said to him, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.” So Peter went out and wept bitterly” (Luke 22:61, 62, emphasis supplied).
Then came a message of love, ” ‘ “But go, tell His disciples—and Peter—that He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him, as He said to you” ‘ ” (Mark 16:7, emphasis supplied).
Jesus sent an angel with a message to his disciples and a personalized message to Peter by name, to let him know that what he had told them before, was still in effect, even after Peter denied Him!
I am so grateful for the joy of God’s forgiveness the morning after a night of weeping! Aren’t you? Thank You Jesus!