Out of the Depths

Sometimes when a passage from the Bible hits me I commit to learning it by heart. Not by memory. Yep, there is a difference. Usually I write it out by hand having perused a number of different versions. I then feel free to use the Glenys Badger version! I leave it near me where I will see it frequently. And yes, because I am a modern person, I even have it on my phone to refer to. And so I begin to read and reread and to have it so I can speak it, sometimes in public and sometimes just in my heart in the dead of night.

Recently Psalm 130 grabbed me. It is one of the psalms that God’s people used to say on their way to Jerusalem (A song of ascents, so presumably uphill. I know the feeling.)

It starts with the line ‘Out of the depths I cry to you, Oh Lord.’ Someone was having an uphill battle. Do you ever feel like that? It goes on to admit that if God kept a record of our wrongs none of us would stand a chance. And then comes one of my favourite words in the Psalms - BUT. ‘But’ often comes as a contrast to what has gone before. And so it is here. ‘But with God there is forgiveness.’ As a result the writer waits in hope as those who watch for the morning. Yes, in times when it would be so easy to despair, whether for ourselves or for the state of the church, or the world, there is hope. The writer urges us to hope in God for there we will find steadfast, unfailing, passionate, extravagant love.

Psalm 130 is in my heart. Check it out. And may it fill you heart with hope and the assurance of the love of God.