Pastor Fredo Ramos: For whatever reason, I have always struggled to pray. And so as this new year begins and as many of you think about new routines that you wanna give yourself to, especially for those of you who follow Jesus, I wanna invite you to learn to pray the Psalms with us. It's a practice I picked up years ago that really saved, my ability to learn to pray, to speak to God honestly about how I was feeling and what I was thinking. And so every single day on sandalschurch.tv on YouTube, we're gonna be releasing, praying the Psalms, a Psalm a day. We started in January 1, and every day you're gonna get a new Psalm with the opportunity to read the Psalm with us, to reflect on a phrase, and then to respond to God in prayer, how to pray through the Psalms.
This has been a gift to me in my own journey with Jesus. I pray that it's a gift to you, and so would you join us. Grace and peace. As we continue praying the Psalms, we come
Pastor Fredo Ramos: now to Psalm 44. Oh, God. We have heard it with our own ears. Our ancestors have told us of all you did in their day and days long ago. You drove out the pagan nations by your power and gave all the land to our ancestors.
You crushed their enemy enemies and set our ancestors free. They did not conquer the land with their swords. It was not their own strong man that gave them victory. It was your right hand and strong-arm and the blinding light from your face that helped them for you love them. What a declaration about what God has done for Israel.
Verse four, you are my king and my God. You command victories over Israel. Only by your power can we push back our enemies. What a what a way to pray today. Only by your power can I get through today?
Verse six, he confesses, I do not trust in my bow. I do not count on my sword to save me. But look at verse nine. But now you have tossed us aside in dishonor. You no longer lead our armies to battle.
You make us retreat from our enemies. Verse 11, you have butchered us like sheep and scattered us among nations. You sold your precious people for a penance, making nothing on the sale. In other words, they're saying, god, you handed us over and you didn't even make a profit on it. We are the object of scorn.
Verse 17, all of this has happened though we have not forgotten you. We have not violated your covenant. Our hearts have not deserted you. We have not strayed from your path. Yet you have crushed us in the jackals' desert home.
He says in verse 22, for your sake we are killed every day. Verse 23, wake up, Lord. Why do you sleep? Get up. Do not reject us forever.
Why do you look the other way? Why do you ignore our suffering? Verse 26. Rise up. Help us.
Ransom us because of your unfailing love. It's important for us to reflect on this Psalm as a way for them to pray their history, their storytelling in their prayers, about all that they heard, about how God delivered them, when their ancestors were around still. So they they know the stories of God. They know, how God how Yahweh saved the people in the past, and now they're looking for him to do it again for them. But God isn't.
In other words, he's not acting the way they have been taught and raised to believe God should act. And so now this prayer is one that embodies what it's like to trust God when you don't understand God or when you don't make you're not able to make sense of why he's not doing what he has done in the past. They they said they're like, yo, this is happening to us, but our hearts have not deserted you, God. You see, there is a there is a season of life that comes for every Christian, every follower of Jesus, where he will do things to you or allow certain things to happen in your life, and it's not the result of your disobedience. And maybe you find yourself today in a situation like that where you're unsure as to what God is doing and it's not directly tied to your disobedience.
You haven't gone anywhere and it appears as though God has left you. He has handed you over. And so this Psalm invites us to respond to God and just ask him, why do you look the other way? Why are you ignoring our suffering? And just to pray that into our day.
Jesus, we hear you inviting us to name the ways that we feel as though maybe you are looking the other way. We have situations in our life, relationships we're dealing with, issues and problems that it seems as though you are not dealing with. You're not present to, and it seems out of your character. But, god, we know you are the lord who has unfailing love for us, As verse 26 reminds us, and so please ransom us, rescue us because of your unfailing, loyal, consistent love today. Even though we sense that things are not right, may we trust our hands and our lives to you today knowing that you are unfailing in your love towards us.
In Jesus name, amen.