Reflections on God in Psalm 44

             Yet You have rejected us and brought us to dishonor,

And do not go out with our armies.

 You cause us to turn back from the adversary;

                        And those who hate us have taken spoil for themselves.

 You give us as sheep to be eaten

                                And have scattered us among the nations. (Ps. 44:9-11)

 These verses sound like charges, even accusations against the Lord but notice this - it is only by such an intimate relationship that such a volley of statements could be made. If the psalmist had not learned what a good God and what a gracious God he had, he could have no platform for complaint, nor any confidence that his complaint would be addressed much less heard.

We do indeed serve and love a living and gracious God! For though everything be against us - God is for us. Though we see all hell break loose against us, like Job in the first two chapters of his book, let us resolve to trust Him regardless.  If I were to put a structure to the whole song I would say:

Part A - Our good God

   1 – 3: You have been good in the past.

                4 – 8: I trust you to be good now.

Selah

Part B - Our difficult God

9 – 16: Accusations to our God

              17 – 22: Defense of our allegations
              23 – 26: A call – a plea – To the goodness of our merciful God.

There is only one musical pause [Selah] in this psalm. It breaks up the song into its two component parts. We look at the second part from verses 9 through 26 and read a strong complaint against the God of Grace. It’s not a complaint with no validity, but its validity is only due to the limitations of our human estate, for our God is Lord of all – even the evil which comes our way is by the permissive hand of God – but always for our good.

What is the characterization of these accusations (vs. 9-16)? First of all, they are not against His decision to treat them this way. How do I know this? Verse 12 tells me.

               You have sold your people for a trifle, And have not profited by their sale. (Ps. 44:12)

We see the psalmist seeking to reason it out. Why has God allowed all this hard way? In other words, the psalmist knows God is indeed good, which we see in Part A, yet he trusts God to be just in spite of seeming injustices.

And yet he never calls God unjust. He only records what God has allowed and his (the psalmist’s) thoughts concerning these events. Verses 12 and 15 show a little of the psalmist’s reasoning on these events.

In all this he never doubts God’s goodness. He is a man simply seeking to reason out the apparently unreasonable. But apparent circumstances are not the whole of the matter.

We do not know the mind of our God in all things. We do know that He is good and never changes and we do know He is for us. At times we must rest in such as these.

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Lord, Help me to trust in your perfect unchanging love. And may I never rebut you in character or actions while I wait upon you.

Amen