Seeing is Rejoicing

“Make us glad according to the days [wherein] thou hast afflicted us, [and] the years [wherein] we have seen evil. Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children.” (Ps 90:15-16 AV)

A couple of definitions are in order here.  Affliction is not necessarily affliction God sent because of disobedience.  Affliction and evil are the general descriptions of the days of our pilgrimage.  Moses may be referring directly to their condition in Egypt and is now asking the LORD to do the opposite for the same amount of time as they were enslaved.  But I don’t think so.  They had just come out of a horrible situation.  All they knew was affliction and evil.  Now that they are free, they may not know how to rejoice.  When one is accustomed to a steady diet of unfortunate circumstances, it is hard to rejoice.  No doubt Israel was shell-shocked.  How they came out of Egypt was dramatic to say the least.  They needed to learn how to rejoice because they had not known how for a very long time.  Moses prays for gladness.  But he does not stop there.  He offers an answer.  That answer is eyes that can see the hand of the LORD in past and present events.  He is asking for the LORD to open the eyes of His people so they can see the sunbeams through the storm.

My father loved to take us camping.  Most of the time it was at the family camping grounds.  The camp was 66 acres of hardwoods and fir trees.  It has an acre pond on it.  However, every once in a while, my father would load the family and equipment and head for a state park or distant road trip.  For most of those trips, we were plagued by a day or two of bad weather.  Camping in the rain is not foreign to me.  One of those trips, we went to the Smoky Mountains.  We must have gone over Labor Day or in the early fall.  It was extremely memorable.  The Smoky Mountains are by nature damp.  The clouds rest upon them (hence the name) and the dew rests on everything.  If it is humid out, then nothing really dries completely.  The week we were there, it rained every day.  All day.  It wasn’t temporary downpours.  It was a steady, light rain that never stopped.  My mom had had enough.  Six days of steady rain.  Nothing in our camp was dry.  She packed it all up, demanded that my father take us to the Inn, and we headed back home the next day.  A funny thing happened at the Inn.  We were sitting inside the overlook when the storm finally abated.  We saw the sun break through.  An hour later, we were outside playing in the sunshine.  We were glad to see what little sunshine we were able to enjoy.

Gladness, or as the Hebrew word defines it, joy, is a matter of perception.  This is for what Moses asked.  He asked for eyes that could see God’s hand in all that had transpired, what was happening at the moment, and what is shaping up to be the future.  He knows life is hardship.  He knows there are days of rain and days of sunshine.  Let us be honest.  All one has to do is pay attention to the news, and one can see how evil our days truly are.  We want Jesus to come back now.  If for anything, for the children who are innocent victims of the evil.  They do not deserve to be slaughtered in the womb.  They do not deserve to be killed in their seats.  They do not deserve to be manipulated into mutilation.  We live in days of evil and affliction.  The further mankind strays from God, the more wicked our world gets.  It is hard to rejoice.  Yet, joy is a matter of perception.  That is all that Moses asks for.  Perception.  Let us see the hand of God and not the hand of man.  Let us see the work of God and not the evil works of man.  If not, it will drive us to insanity.