The holiday season is in full swing, having started a few weeks ago with Thanksgiving and lasting until after New Year’s Day. During the holidays, many people will spend time with family. On Thanksgiving my family had lunch at my parents and dinner at my in-laws. Thankfully, they live only 5 minutes apart. Over the next few weeks, we will have two more extended family gatherings, and probably others as well. My family all live close by, so no one comes to stay overnight. Some of you, however, either stay over with family or you have family stay with you.
Family visits for the holidays can be interesting, to say the least, especially when they involved overnight stays. Have you ever had guests wear out their welcome? Have you ever tried to give them hints that you were ready for them to pack up and go home? It can be very awkward, right? You don’t want to offend, but they are clearly not picking up on the subtle clues you’re trying to give them.
In week three of our Advent blog series looking at a variety of genres of psalms, we’re studying Psalm 30, and in that psalm David talks about pain, suffering, emotion and struggle like a visitor that has made its lodging in our lives, and it seems like it will never leave.
You might think, “Joel, I would never invite pain into my life, so this analogy doesn’t work.” I get that. But the reality is that pain is like some family over the holidays, we might not invite them, but they still show up. Or we feel obligated to invite them, almost as if we have no choice in the matter. Pain is often like that, a regular part of our lives.
But there is hope. With this psalm we move from lament to confession to thanksgiving for that unwanted visitor of pain that actually does leave. How? Why? Join us on the blog next week as we study this joyful psalm.
Photo by Rex Pickar on Unsplash
Engaging Scripture 