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One of the things I love about this portion of scripture, is the honest way the author acknowledges how life can be terrible! We're caught
"in the net," as he says, and we are given unreasonably heavy burdens on our backs! God lets people ride right over us, and we're forced through tests.
Our integrity is determined in a crucible much like the way one purifies and tests silver, by melting it down.

This is tough stuff!

Despite this honest look at life, at the very beginning of verse 8, we're encouraged to bless God. We should praise him, and loudly! He has kept us alive, and throughout it all, these challenges, we have not slipped, thanks to God.

If you've come through difficult experiences, and you bother to acknowledge that your survival of the challenge was in large part because of God's provisional hand, then you know exactly what I mean. You just want to sing out, "Come and hear, all you who fear our God, and I will tell what he has done! I cried aloud to him, and he heard my prayer!"

Life can be tragic— actually, that might not even be a truthful statement. It might be more truthful to say life IS tragic. I have friends who are struggling with some of the worst things we humans are asked to deal with. Children with mental health issues, spouses who betray our trust, abusive situations, the list goes on.

But God has TRULY listened, and he has given heed to the words of our prayer!

Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer!

Amen

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Psalm 66:8-20

8 Bless our God, O peoples,
let the sound of his praise be heard,
9 who has kept us among the living,
and has not let our feet slip.
10 For you, O God, have tested us;
you have tried us as silver is tried.
11 You brought us into the net;
you laid burdens on our backs;
12 you let people ride over our heads;
we went through fire and through water;yet you have brought us out to a spacious place.
13 I will come into your house with burnt-offerings;
I will pay you my vows,
14 those that my lips uttered
and my mouth promised when I was in trouble.
15 I will offer to you burnt-offerings of fatlings,
with the smoke of the sacrifice of rams;I will make an offering of bulls and goats.
Selah
16 Come and hear, all you who fear God,
and I will tell what he has done for me.
17 I cried aloud to him,
and he was extolled with my tongue.
18 If I had cherished iniquity in my heart,
the Lord would not have listened.
19 But truly God has listened;
he has given heed to the words of my prayer.
20 Blessed be God,
because he has not rejected my prayer
or removed his steadfast love from me.

New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
#scripturesongs