Turmoil and Truth. How greatly I understand the heart of the psalmist struggling with Turmoil ("Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me") while clinging desperately to Truth ("Send out your light and your truth; let them lead me").
The psalmist's song of tension, depression and despair against a broken world is as relevant today, to our hearts as believers, as when it was written thousands of years ago.
Only turn on a news channel or scroll through a Twitter feed to experience that "truth" is a word which has been manipulated and corrupted to such an extent that it has ceased to have any meaning at all, and our hearts cry out in despair.
It is easy to lose sight of our "God in whom we take refuge" when we live in a world in which truth is "relative" and we are bombarded constantly with news of unfathomable worldly evil, lies, deceit, and oppression.
The psalmist, in the first stanza, does not minimize the difficulty and grief of living in such a broken world. But, wait! In the glorious and joyful second stanza, we see the psalmist virtually wrench his heart back to what he knows to be the perfect and ABSOLUTE truth of God ("Send out your light and your truth, let them lead me...to your holy hill and to your dwelling.")
In a broken world, may our hearts, in turmoil, always "go to the altar of God, to God our exceeding joy." Hope in God! Praise Him! Praise Him, my salvation and my God!
- Allison W.