{"id":960,"date":"2018-05-20T07:51:17","date_gmt":"2018-05-20T11:51:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/?p=960"},"modified":"2018-06-16T08:27:09","modified_gmt":"2018-06-16T12:27:09","slug":"ctpress-may-18-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/2018\/05\/20\/ctpress-may-18-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"CTPress May 18, 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I recently had the opportunity to teach on <strong>Psalm 69<\/strong>. In this prayer of David, he cries out to God in a very dramatic way. He opens the psalm saying, <em><strong>\u201cI don\u2019t see you, my throat is sore from calling to you, and I\u2019m sinking. Help!\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Have you ever felt that way?<\/strong> Have you ever gone through something so hard that you wondered where God was and why you couldn\u2019t find him? A disease, a death, destruction and calamity \u2013 this world us full of reasons and events that can make us question our faith if we are not careful.<\/p>\n<p>By the time David gets to the end of the psalm, something changes. <strong><em>\u201cLet heaven and earth praise him, the seas and everything that moves in<\/em> them. For God will save Zion\u201d (34-35)<\/strong>. David starts the psalm confident that God cannot be found, and he ends the psalm confident that God will deliver. So, what changed?<\/p>\n<p>The answer is in <em><strong>verses 29-30: But I am afflicted and in pain; let your salvation, O God, set me on high! I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify him with thanksgiving.<\/strong><\/em> In the beginning of the psalm, David says, <em><strong>\u201cWhat about me?\u201d<\/strong> <\/em>In verses 29-30 he says,<em><strong> \u201cI\u2019m in pain, but I have God.\u201d<\/strong> <\/em><strong>David moves from focusing on his situation to focusing on God.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Whatever it is you are going through, whatever you are facing, know that it will be easy to wonder where God is. But also know that <strong>if you shift your focus to what God is doing instead of what God isn\u2019t doing, what you are going through may be easier to endure.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Blessings,<\/p>\n<p>Pastor John<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have you ever gone through something so hard that you wondered where God was and why you couldn\u2019t find him? Click to read some inspiration. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/2018\/05\/20\/ctpress-may-18-2018\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":961,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/20180503_124428.jpg?fit=4032%2C3024&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=960"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":964,"href":"https:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960\/revisions\/964"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ctpres.org\/ctpressblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}