Psalm Devotional
Reversals and Rejoicing
I enjoy upsets and amazing reversals. That’s one of the reasons I enjoy sports. Amazing reversals, however, are not limited to the world of sports. The Bible is a book of amazing reversals.
In fact, the Bible is the account of the greatest reversal of all. In Genesis 3, all seems lost as Adam, and all humanity in him, falls under the curse; but the remainder of the Bible reveals God’s glorious reversal of that curse through Jesus Christ. It is part of God’s modus operandi to confound the wise by working amazing reversals in history and in our own lives. Psalm 30 is an account of one such reversal.
Psalm 30 is a thanksgiving psalm in which the psalmist thanks God for his deliverance. The opening verses describe the nature of the psalmist’s plight before his rescue. Verses 2-3, by referring to the psalmist’s proximity to the “grave” and the “pit,” reveal that his trial was a severe illness that left him vulnerable to his enemies (v. 1) and on the verge of death. Verse 6 takes us back even further in time and reveals the ultimate cause of the psalmist’s suffering. Before his illness, the psalmist declared, “When I felt secure, I said, ‘I will never be shaken.’” Do you see the psalmist’s problem? When he was prospering he became presumptuous and self-confident. He began to attribute his security to his own actions, rather than to God’s favor. Don’t we often do the same thing in times of prosperity?
