Psalm 90. 14 Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. 15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble. 16 May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendor to their children. 17 May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us;
It is not too terribly hard to find something to complain about. Every day we live in a world that has been broken by sin and our lives reflect that. We watch the news and there is crime, and terror, famine, storm, and disaster. We look at our personal life and at times there seems to be more downs that ups, more aches and pains, than moments of joy. And so sometimes we become frustrated and we bemoan our problems, we grumble, we complain. At times we become so broken by our problems that we cry out to God in anger and blame him or demand more from him. “Things should be better LORD.” “The list of good thing should at least be as long as the list of bad things.”
Instances of anger and verbal frustration are most likely rare in your life; more often we are simply left unsatisfied with how things are going. Dwelling on the problems we have and the good we think we should have, we are left with a bad taste in our mouth. We feel unsatisfied. But let us consider what we actually deserve from our God, and what we actually received from him. Because this world is so broken God should have scrapped it and started over. He should have forsaken us and forgotten about us because of our continual disobedience. Our daily sins of thought, word, and deed, should have earned eternal death for ourselves. And yet God in his gracious, and undeserved love, takes care of us. His love is unfailing. His love is steadfast. Day after day he watches over us and takes care of us.
He gives us this world which produces all the food, all the nourishment that we need. He gives us abilities to make a living and the wealth to retire. He gives us family and friends to tend to us, doctors and their skills, intelligence, and medicine to take care of us. He gives us bodies that miraculous mend themselves and often react well to medicine and therapy. And the ultimate display of his mercy he gave his one and only Son to die for us undeserving sinners. And through faith in Jesus we now have the sure and certain promise of eternal life free from the pains and problems of this world. In his grace and mercy he sustains us until that day with his powerful word and his precious sacraments.
At times when we concentrate on what our lives look like and what we think we deserve we might feel unsatisfied. But when we consider truly what we deserve and what our Lord gives us his mercy, his unfailing love, far outweighs our problems and our trials. And we are satisfied. We are blessed in life and for all eternity through our gracious Lord. Am
Lord, help me to see how richly you have blessed me in this life and lead me to hold firmly to the gift of eternal life that you have given to me freely through Christ Jesus. Lord lead me to your word daily so that I may grow in the knowledge of your unfailing love and be satisfied and sing your praises all my days. Amen.