June 19, 2025

Psalm 78:32-55  (HCSB)
32 Despite all this, they kept sinning
and did not believe His wonderful works.
33 He made their days end in futility,
their years in sudden disaster.
34 When He killed some of them,
the rest began to seek Him;
they repented and searched for God.
35 They remembered that God was their rock,
the Most High God, their Redeemer.
36 But they deceived Him with their mouths,
they lied to Him with their tongues,
37 their hearts were insincere toward Him,
and they were unfaithful to His covenant.
38 Yet He was compassionate;
He atoned for their guilt
and did not destroy them.
He often turned His anger aside
and did not unleash all His wrath.
39 He remembered that they were only flesh,
a wind that passes and does not return.
40 How often they rebelled against Him
in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert.
41 They constantly tested God
and provoked the Holy One of Israel.
42 They did not remember His power shown
on the day He redeemed them from the foe,
43 when He performed His miraculous signs in Egypt and His wonders in the region of Zoan.
44 He turned their rivers into blood,
and they could not drink from their streams.
45 He sent among them swarms of flies,
which fed on them,
and frogs, which devastated them.
46 He gave their crops to the caterpillar
and the fruit of their labor to the locust.
47 He killed their vines with hail
and their sycamore fig trees with a flood.
48 He handed over their livestock to hail
and their cattle to lightning bolts.
49 He sent His burning anger against them:
fury, indignation, and calamity—
a band of deadly messengers.
50 He cleared a path for His anger.
He did not spare them from death
but delivered their lives to the plague.
51 He struck all the firstborn in Egypt,
the first progeny of the tents of Ham.
52 He led His people out like sheep
and guided them like a flock in the wilderness.
53 He led them safely, and they were not afraid;
but the sea covered their enemies.
54 He brought them to His holy land,
to the mountain His right hand acquired.
55 He drove out nations before them.
He apportioned their inheritance by lot
and settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.

Charles and Kristen Pevahouse
In this passage we see how the Israelites continued to turn away from God even after witnessing the miraculous. They experienced His provision, His guidance, and even His discipline, yet they still struggled to remain faithful. Isn’t this often a mirror of our own lives? When things are going well we forget to praise God for His faithfulness, when things are falling apart we wonder why He has abandoned us. If we look to the Israelites, we realize we are not alone in this tendency. Yet, despite their waywardness, God remained patient and faithful. He disciplined them, but He never abandoned them. He led them out of Egypt, rescued them from oppression, and provided for their needs. His faithfulness was not based on their perfection but on His unchanging love.