Psalm 78:34

When He slew them,
then they sought Him.
And they returned and sought earnestly for God.
Then they remembered that God was their Rock,
and the Most High God their Redeemer.

Psalm 78 is long. Seventy-two verses long. More than two whole pages in my Bible. Usually when we get to Psalm 78 in daily prayers, I end up reading a portion, or skimming through it pretty quickly. I'm bad. My attention is too short. It's easier for me to pray those 8-verse psalms or even those 16-verse psalms. But two whole long pages? My mind wanders.

This past Sunday, though, we were unable to attend church. I had no laundry to do. No dishes to do. I had time to say my prayers without rushing through a very long psalm. The psalm goes through the things God did for Israel, and how they rejected them. But He was faithful and worked wonders for them. And they rejected Him. So He became angry, but still He was merciful and rescued them. And after a while they spit in His face yet again. This is basically the way life worked through all the history of the children of Israel. And individual Christians can identify with that altogether too well.

But then we get halfway through this recitation of the cycling between unbelief and dependence upon Him and then unbelief again, and Asaph points out very very bluntly, "When He slew them, then they sought Him." It's almost like we cannot seek Him when things are going well. We should! But we tend not to. Thus the need for the curse of the fall, that we struggle with hard work and difficulty in raising kids and coping with earthquakes and floods. Thus God had to give over the Israelites to their sinful desires (for just one little example, to be like the other nations surrounding them) so that they would learn experientially exactly what their desires would garner them.

Pastor talks about the theology of the cross. Luther writes about the theology of the cross. The theology of the cross is obvious through much of Paul's writings. But this one verse really seems to express it in a nutshell: we have no use for Him until He slays us, and then we remember our Rock and our Redeemer.

I've got the quote in at least three different books, but I have access to none of them this week -- the quote from Luther about God's killing to make alive, God's bringing through hell to give heaven, God's bringing us low to raise us up. Yup, that quote is the extended version of these two verses in Psalm 78. I wish I could include the quote; I should probably memorize it. Somewhere in between laundry loads....