There is always a before and an after. The psalmist shows
us life with God between this before and after. We go
from despair to joy, from feeling utterly alone, cast down,
and forgotten to feeling uplifted, supported, and healthy. We
must be careful not to imagine this before and after of life
as caused by God’s toying with us. Nor would it be helpful
to our souls to see life as endless cycles of absurdity moving
continually back and forth between the sublime to the
grotesque.
Both ways of seeing life constantly tempt us. The psalmist
shows us a God who walks with us in time, content to be
with us in life’s every moment. Before you awoke this day
God was there with you, waiting to enter it with you. Before
you encounter events and relationships that may disappoint
or hurt or drive you toward despair, God is prepared to
move you through the day. Even if this day brings you to
mistakes that displease God and hurt your neighbor, God
will not abandon you but will await your repentance and
your turning again to the way of faith.
God is the God of the again and again, always wishing
to bring us to an after: after we have fallen, after the
disappointment, after the hurt. This is God’s way, forever
drawing us from the signs of death to the sight of life.
Therefore we are bold both in our praise and our complaint
to God, knowing that in either moment we live with a God
with excellent hearing. The time between before and after
can seem endless, but there will be an after because God is
faithful.
By Willie James Jennings from The Upper Room: 60 Days of Prayer for General Conference 2016