For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. – Ps. 30:5 KJV
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Most people in life after recording success, take it as the product of personal efforts and hardly see any other person’s role, including the Almighty God in the achievement. They seem to believe that the success from the beginning to the end was the result of their sole effort and as long as they continue to put in their effort, they cannot fail again. The writer of this Psalm, who is suspected to be King David, was not different as after attaining success, he concluded that nothing could move him again – Ps. 30:6. The Almighty God sees statements like this as a sign of ingratitude and arrogance and His reaction has been the same from age to age and the case of Nebuchadnezzar immediately comes to mind – Dan. 4:1-37. His reaction also has been consistent over ages as God immediately hides his face implying that he withdraws his grace from the person. This was God’s reaction to the Psalmist in this psalm (Ps. 30:7) and the repercussion was better imagined. Things became bad immediately to the point that the Psalmist started imagining death – Ps. 30:9.
With pleas to the Lord, he asked God, what benefit will come to Him if he was to lose his life because of the reaction of God to his foolery, pleading that God should have mercy on him and help him – Ps. 30:8-10. God did answer him and according to his testimony in this psalm, God turned his mourning to dancing and his sackcloth was replaced with gladness – Ps. 30:11-12. In appreciation, he vowed to always acknowledge and praise the Lord for ever which was what he was doing in the opening four verses of this psalm – Ps. 30:1-4. In the course of his rejoicing, he provided some insights into some characteristics of God which will be of immense help to the Christian today. In verse 5, which is the scripture for today, he observed that:
1. God does get angry but it is not for too long.
2. No matter how long the weeping may be for, there is always assurance of joy at the end, for the Christian.
3. The favour of the Lord will bring back life to a dead soul.
Knowing this about the Almighty God from a credible source like the Psalmist should help the Christian have a better understanding on how to manage his/her relationship with Him.
Firstly, that old belief that anger is only with men as God is always tolerant should be immediately discarded. If Christians, even if they know that He gets angry, believe that, they will be more careful about what they do when in a relationship with Him by avoiding the total disregard for Him and His laws. This is because, in the state of anger, the angry person musters all the resources to inflict a negative reaction on the target of the action of anger. Anyone who knows the strength and resources available to God will therefore be expected to thread carefully in their relationship with Him, but that seems not to be the case with Christians as they disrespectfully relate to Him in a manner that is more like, “we can handle all your anger, so there is nothing to fear”. God is only slow to anger but His anger produces massive destruction – 2Sam. 17:1-24; Num. 31:8-18. Your present experience may just be the result of His anger. Save yourself from further pain as looking for all those scapegoats called enemies will not help you. Find out your actions that has triggered His anger, stop doing them and relief will follow in Jesus name. Amen.
Secondly, the Psalmist says that even though His anger brings pain and weeping, there is always the assurance of joy at the end. As true as this is, it is not automatic as it is very much dependent on the manner of reaction of the victim of His anger. God’s anger, especially at the Christian is with the hope that the individual will change and acknowledge Him as the Almighty God – 2Cor. 7:10; Heb. 12:6. As soon as He sees a sign of this in the person, He immediately withdraws His anger and He not only does that, but begins to apply balm to all the wounds that His anger may have caused. He does not stop there either as He begins to compensate the individual for the loss during the period of His anger – Lk. 15:11-32. These actions ends up bringing joy to the person and replaces mourning with gladness. You can also have a change of fortune if you are genuinely remorseful and repent from all your actions that are triggering His anger. You will be able to do that only if you stop seeing enemies behind your situation and see Him as the support behind the actions of those enemies. It is then you will be able to focus on Him and do the needful to repair the damaged relationship with him.
Thirdly, the person experiencing the anger of the Lord will almost pick the choice of death. It is really dreadful to fall into the hands of the Lord as he comes down negatively, with his entire capacity, on the person – Heb. 10:31. The anger of God moves the victim to the boundary of death but the mercy of God reverses all the pain immediately thus bringing the hope of a new life. You may be experiencing the effect of His anger at the moment and thinking of death as your next destination, but you should rest, assured that simply confessing your sins and repenting from them is all you need to move you from the brink of death to the centre of life.
May God help you see His love for you as the reason for your situation and retrace your steps so that He can restore you and bring you back to life in Jesus name. Amen.
