O give thanks to the Lord, call upon His name;Make known His deeds among the people. Sing to Him, sing praises to Him;Speak of all His wonderful acts and devoutly praise them. Glory in His holy name;Let the hearts of those who seek and require the Lord [as their most essential need] rejoice. Seek and deeply long for the Lord and His strength [His power, His might];Seek and deeply long for His face and His presence continually. Remember [with awe and gratitude] the wonderful things which He has done,His amazing deeds and the judgments uttered by His mouth [on His enemies, as in Egypt], O you offspring of Abraham, His servant,O you sons of Jacob, His chosen ones! He is the Lord our God;His judgments are in all the earth. He has remembered His covenant forever,The word which He commanded and established to a thousand generations, The covenant which He made with Abraham,And His sworn oath to Isaac, Which He confirmed to Jacob as a statute,To Israel as an everlasting covenant, Saying, “To you I will give the land of CanaanAs the measured portion of your inheritance.” When there were only a few men in number,Very few [in fact], and strangers in it; And they wandered from one nation to another,From one kingdom to another people, He allowed no man to oppress them;He rebuked kings for their sakes, saying, “Do not touch My anointed ones,And do My prophets no harm.” And He called for a famine upon the land [of Egypt];He cut off every source of bread. He sent a man before them,Joseph, who was sold as a slave. His feet they hurt with shackles;He was put in chains of iron, Until the time that his word [of prophecy regarding his brothers] came true,The word of the Lord tested and refined him. The king sent and released him,The ruler of the peoples [of Egypt], and set him free. He made Joseph lord of his houseAnd ruler of all his possessions, To imprison his princes at his will,That he might teach his elders wisdom. Israel also came into Egypt;Thus Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham. There the Lord greatly increased [the number of] His people,And made them more powerful than their enemies. He turned the heart [of the Egyptians] to hate His people,To deal craftily with His servants. He sent Moses His servant,And Aaron, whom He had chosen. They exhibited His wondrous signs among them,Great miracles in the land of Ham (Egypt). He sent [thick, oppressive] darkness and made the land dark;And Moses and Aaron did not rebel against His words. He turned Egypt’s waters into bloodAnd caused their fish to die. Their land swarmed with frogs,Even in the chambers of their kings. He spoke, and there came swarms of fliesAnd gnats in all their territory. He gave them hail for rain,With flaming fire in their land. He struck their vines also and their fig trees,And shattered the [ice-laden] trees of their territory. He spoke, and the [migratory] locusts came,And the young locusts, even without number, And ate up all the vegetation in their land,And devoured the fruit of their ground. He also struck down all the firstborn in their land,The first fruits and chief substance of all their strength. He brought the sons of Israel out [of Egypt] with silver and gold,And among their tribes there was not one who stumbled. Egypt was glad when they departed,For the dread and fear of them had fallen on the Egyptians. The Lord spread a cloud as a covering [by day],And a fire to illumine the night. The Israelites asked, and He brought quail,And satisfied them with the bread of heaven. He opened the rock and water flowed out;It ran in the dry places like a river. For He remembered His holy wordTo Abraham His servant; He brought out His people with joy,And His chosen ones with a joyful shout, He gave them the lands of the nations [of Canaan],So that they would possess the fruits of those peoples’ labor, So that they might observe His preceptsAnd keep His laws [obediently accepting and honoring and valuing them].Praise the Lord! (Hallelujah!)

Psalm 105

It looked like an abstract painting. A notation on the easel invites the viewer to find the face of Abraham Lincoln.

I stared at the painting for a long time, observing it close up and down from different angles. It baffled me. “There’s no Abraham Lincoln there,” I said resignedly and headed for the exit.

But at the door, I turned for one last look. I saw him. From one hundred feet away, he stood out clearly. The face of Lincoln filled the canvas. I had given up because I had been too near. I saw only when I had distance and perspective.

George Wood

Often our circumstances may be as confusing to us as an abstract painting. While the Bible and our faith may tell us that there is a plan and pattern somewhere in the painting of life, we can’t see it. Perhaps we are too near the pain or too close to the hurt to figure it out.

Psalm 105 provides encouragement for us by recalling all the wonderful things God did for Israel. This psalm encourages us, like it did Israel to take the long view and say: “Give thanks to the Lord….Sing to him…tell of all his wonderful acts….Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles.( verses 1-7)

Verses 8-11 remind us that He does not forget His promises. He wants our hearts to be saturated with the understanding that He is absolutely faithful- “He remembers his covenant forever”(verse 5).

While God doesn’t forget- we do. We are often tempted in our trials to forget how God cared for us in the past. For this reason the rest of the psalm focuses on all the things God did for His people throughout their history. In each story, we see that God was with them:

Nomads(verses 12-15) Even before God brought them into a land of their own, He cared for them. Maybe right now you feel like a nomad. Those around you may have stable careers, families, or positions, but not us. We might not even know where we are going next or what we will do. Unstable describes our life at this moment and uncertainty is your companion.

Can God truly be with us in such a time? Just as He was with Abraham who was described as a “stranger” and one who “wandered,” He will also be with us in vulnerable times too.

Hard times(verses 16-25) Both in slavery and famine, God provided for His people. Famines aren’t just physical. We may be starving for acceptance, health, or wholesome relationships, but we can trust that God is already working out a plan so that we won’t starve and we’ll have plenty. That’s what He did for Israel through Joseph.

The scripture reads interesting as it tells the story of Joseph. Psalm 105 says that God “sent” Joseph to Egypt, but the story reads that his brothers sold him into slavery. I’d bet it didn’t feel like God was “sending.” It was the worst possible nightmare coming true. It’s only by distant that Joseph and we can understand that it was God engineering the whole thing. For us, God knows well in advance just as He did with Israel that famine is coming and just as He sent Joseph down to Egypt years in advance to prepare the future well-being, He has also already anticipated our needs and His rescue plan is in place before our troubles begin. In addition, God makes us fruitful even in places of difficulty.

Escape (verses 26-38) We probably wouldn’t choose on our own the means God uses to get us out of jams. Do you think that if we were an Israelite in Egypt that we would have chosen an eighty year-old unarmed fugitive named Moses to be our deliverer? What a funny picture imagining that someone like this could possibly stand against the might of Pharaoh and Egypt!

Too often we demand God uses our solutions rather than trusting that He might use things we never thought of and He will cause us to emerge from adversity loaded down with resources rather than being impoverished.

Transition (verses 39-41) The Israelites traveled from Egypt into the wilderness. Here in Psalm 105 the writer remembers only the good things and omits any mention of Israel complaining about thirst or hunger or rebellion against God and His chosen leaders. What goodness of God that He would allow us to selectively remember only what He did while forgetting our rebellion, backtalk, and grumbling. I’m sure we won’t have any complaints when God completes His work with us, so why complain and grumble today?

Fulfillment( verses 42-43) One things for sure, if today isn’t one of joy, God’s tomorrow will be for the Lord will never leave or abandon us in “Egypt” or the “wilderness.” He intends to bring us into “a land flowing with milk and honey where the abundant blessing outweighs the agonies of this life. After all He has all of eternity to make good on His promises.

Dr. John Thompson