Waiting in Faith
I have been young, and now I am old; Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendents begging bread. Psalm 37:25
One of the surprises of Robert Caro's biography of Robert Moses, Power Broker, is that at Yale the young man who would become New York's supreme operator had a philosophical bent. Moses paused over Sophocles reflection, "One must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day has been."
It's hard to maintain that equipoise in retrospect. In a playwright's version of a conversation between Bill and Hillary Clinton recorded in this week's New Yorker, a fictionalized Hillary is trying to settle with a world in which her husband got to be president and she did not. Turning reflective himself, the playwright's version of Bill Clinton says we don't know what kind of a world we live in until we are ready to leave it.
Psalm 37:25 would lend some credence to this idea of perspective with time. David has known what it is to howl for vindication at a particular moment in time. God has thought enough of these pleas for His intervention to preserve them for the ages rather than dismiss them as self-justifying or immature. Yet, the David who once was young and now is old by the time of this writing is taking the wider view.
Surely he remembers these times when he felt abandoned, misjudged, maybe even forsaken. From beyond the cross, we can see that he presaged his descendent and Lord in these at least as much as in his victories. Yet, looking back on life from its evening, as he approaches the time to leave it, David declines to believe he has ever really been forsaken.
There have been nights of the soul. There have been times when human emotional intensity eclipsed the overarching sovereignty and providence of God, but forsakeness has been an experience rather than a reality, a phase rather than a final label. As for times of need, what are they as one begins to sense the sufficiency of Christ as Bread of Life?
We owe, Christian, that suspension of the final verdict. God has proven too good even in resolving our temporal dilemmas for us to attempt to pass judgment otherwise. If we, brothers and sisters, take the 50-year what view in confidence that He will be vindicated in us whether or not we are in a particular situation, we might be able to glimpse a splendid sunset that puts today's frustrations in perspective.
One of the surprises of Robert Caro's biography of Robert Moses, Power Broker, is that at Yale the young man who would become New York's supreme operator had a philosophical bent. Moses paused over Sophocles reflection, "One must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day has been."
It's hard to maintain that equipoise in retrospect. In a playwright's version of a conversation between Bill and Hillary Clinton recorded in this week's New Yorker, a fictionalized Hillary is trying to settle with a world in which her husband got to be president and she did not. Turning reflective himself, the playwright's version of Bill Clinton says we don't know what kind of a world we live in until we are ready to leave it.
Psalm 37:25 would lend some credence to this idea of perspective with time. David has known what it is to howl for vindication at a particular moment in time. God has thought enough of these pleas for His intervention to preserve them for the ages rather than dismiss them as self-justifying or immature. Yet, the David who once was young and now is old by the time of this writing is taking the wider view.
Surely he remembers these times when he felt abandoned, misjudged, maybe even forsaken. From beyond the cross, we can see that he presaged his descendent and Lord in these at least as much as in his victories. Yet, looking back on life from its evening, as he approaches the time to leave it, David declines to believe he has ever really been forsaken.
There have been nights of the soul. There have been times when human emotional intensity eclipsed the overarching sovereignty and providence of God, but forsakeness has been an experience rather than a reality, a phase rather than a final label. As for times of need, what are they as one begins to sense the sufficiency of Christ as Bread of Life?
We owe, Christian, that suspension of the final verdict. God has proven too good even in resolving our temporal dilemmas for us to attempt to pass judgment otherwise. If we, brothers and sisters, take the 50-year what view in confidence that He will be vindicated in us whether or not we are in a particular situation, we might be able to glimpse a splendid sunset that puts today's frustrations in perspective.
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