Do You Feel Understood?
In this world we all desire to be understood. We often ask people if they understand. We will look at people like they are crazy when they try and be compassionate and say I understand where you are coming from or that they know how you feel.
It is obvious we do not know but that we are trying to help give comfort or strength. We are trying to get down there and do life with one another.
Even thought his is what we are doing we tend to only alienate the person because maybe they are not handling it as well as the person who asked them seems to be handling life.
So again, do you fell understood? Or do you feel confused and downtrodden?
Do you feel like everything is out of control and you are just here without a purpose? Is life becoming too much for you?
Is your world falling down around you and you feel like no one knows or cares and even if they did know they would not understand?
Well I want to tell you that there is one who does care and one who does know exactly what you are going through and He wants to help you.
This is God. He loves you and has a plan and purpose for you but He understands everything you are going through.
He is not one that will just say He understands trying to comfort. He genuinely does understand and He wants to strengthen you.
God desires and delights in meeting the needs of those in desperate straits. He understands what is happening and He offers strength.
God knows your situation, He will give you strength through His love, and He will give you overflowing abundance to face everything.
He is the God who understands and as such He will help you.
We see this in today’s Scripture from Ps. 147
1 Praise the Lord! For it is good to sing praises to our God; for it is pleasant, and a song of praise is fitting. 2 The Lord builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts of Israel. 3 He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. 4 He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names. 5 Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure. 6 The Lord lifts up the humble; he casts the wicked to the ground. 7 Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving; make melody to our God on the lyre! 8 He covers the heavens with clouds; he prepares rain for the earth; he makes grass grow on the hills. 9 He gives to the beasts their food, and to the young ravens that cry. 10 His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of a man, 11 but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love. 12 Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem! Praise your God, O Zion! 13 For he strengthens the bars of your gates; he blesses your children within you. 14 He makes peace in your borders; he fills you with the finest of the wheat. 15 He sends out his command to the earth; his word runs swiftly. 16 He gives snow like wool; he scatters frost like ashes. 17 He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs; who can stand before his cold? 18 He sends out his word, and melts them; he makes his wind blow and the waters flow. 19 He declares his word to Jacob, his statutes and rules to Israel. 20 He has not dealt thus with any other nation; they do not know his rules. Praise the Lord!
Psalm 147 ESV
From within this Psalm we see many wonderful things about the understanding of God. The first is that…
God Knows Your Situation (1-5)
He gathers the outcasts. This should penetrate all of us. To someone or some people out there we are all outcasts. Every one of us are outcasts to someone. We are not in with everyone. We may not care or we may want to have involvement with certain groups.
Regardless where you are in life, you are an outcast to someone or to certain groups.
Some are worse off than others. They may feel that they are completely outcast. Completely left to fend life alone. That they are a nothing to everyone else. They have no hope they think.
Yet, God understands and God knows your situation. He gathers the outcasts. As I said a minute ago we are all outcasts. I gave only human examples then but now let me give our spiritual.
We are all spiritual outcasts until we believe in Jesus for our salvation. God knew our situation and sent Jesus into the world to take on flesh and suffer and die for us so we could live with Him as His and not be outcasts.
If He did this for us when we were far from Him, don’t you think He knows what you face and what is happening in your life now?
He does and He cares. He heals the brokenhearted and binds their wounds.
He is the source for understanding and healing and comfort. He will give what you need when you seek Him for it.
He will guard you and keep you. He will heal your pain and suffering. This may not be in physical healing but He will heal you spiritually when you seek Him. This will be a comfort in the difficulties.
You will be joyful when terrible news hits and pains come because you know God is in control and He is the one who will give you what you need.
Look at verse 4. If you think you are alone and no one cares or no one understands you. You may think that you are fighting this battle alone and God is too busy for you. Look at this verse. Ps. 147:4
4 He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names.
Psalm 147:4 ESV
This tells us many things. First do you know how many known stars there are in the universe? According to several sources there are 200 billion trillion stars. This is the number 200 with 21 zeros behind it. This is a massive number.
Yet God determined the numbers of the stars, and that number is unknown, and He named them all. If He is that meticulous, I can guarantee that He knows exactly where you are and what you are facing.
Just as Christ said in Luke 12:6-7 “6 Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. 7 Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.”
God knows you and He knows exactly what is going on with you. If He knows the exact number of stars and their names and if He knows the exact number of hairs on your head, He knows what is happening to you.
He knows your situation. But to find this comfort and strength we must humble ourselves and quit seeking our answers from this world and things in this world and find our…
Strength in God’s Love (6-11)
If we depend on this world to help us, we will be let down.
If we depend on other people to help us, we will be let down.
If we depend on ourselves, we will be let down.
Our strength is not enough to make it through.
Paul cried out for relief and help during his difficult times and God told him that in our weakness His power rests upon us.
This means that when we humble ourselves and seek God in life and everything in it, we will have His power in our lives.
This is clear in verses 10-11 Ps. 147:10-11
10 His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of a man, 11 but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love.
Psalm 147:10–11 ESV
His pleasure is with us who find our strength in Him alone and not ourselves or others. When we have our identity in Him alone we are strong because He is working through us.
This is what it means to fear God. When we fear God we “acknowledge his supremacy and one’s own subservient position, and to place one’s hope in God, rather than in oneself” (Tremper Longman, Psalms: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, Inter-Varsity Press, 472).
We place our hope and reliance in Him alone because only He is big enough to carry the burdens and only He is capable enough of handling it without fail.
I don’t care how strong and independent you are, you cannot handle life alone without God. You will stumble and struggle and fail and fall. You will be let down and depressed and distraught with no hope. Only with God can we stand the world and all it throws at us.
We are only human and when too much hits us and too much difficulties arise we will have a breaking point. We will get down and despair.
Strong men will break at times and will struggle in situations.
A scene in Saving Private Ryan gives us good insight here. It is after they take the communication tower and they lose their medic.
He is off to the side looking at the map determining their next move when he breaks down crying. He had faced the D-Day landing with strength, several encounters up to this point. This attack on a fortitude position that was quite dangerous, all with courage and strength.
Yet, him a very courageous and strong man no doubt, finally breaks because it is more than he can handle.
Many men and women of great strength and courage have broke at some point because something is too much for them.
This tells us that no matter how strong you are or how strong someone else is that you depend on, our strength is not enough. We will break, but God will not.
He delights in us and gives us strength when we express our weakness to Him. We are resting in His power then and not our own.
We need to focus on Him and trust in Him and place our hopes in Him alone because only He can sustain us properly because His love is never ending and steadfast in everything.
Not only this but He has an…
Overflowing Abundance to His Own (12-20)
When we give it all to Him and trust in Him and have our hopes in Him, His abundance is overflowing and overwhelming.
Look at all the things these last verses says He does.
He strengthens the fortifications, He blesses the children, He makes peace, He fills with wheat, His commands swiftly go throughout the earth, He controls the weather and provides the moisture needed, He has given His word and rules to those who are His and blessed them tremendously.
This is directed to Israel as this is a Psalm of Praise to God from them but we see God’s provision in it.
What this tells us is that God fortifies and strengthens you to face the grueling and the difficult. He gives you peace and satisfaction, because He is the all-powerful creator.
We see here that when you are His you have blessings that others do not.
As it says at the end about Israel and how He has not dealt with another nation like He has them. This is His chosen people and He has poured out special affection on them. They are the apple of His eye and He has given them things He has not any other nation.
Guess what? If you are in Christ you have His special affection. You have His special gift that not everyone has.
You are His and as His He has protection and grace for you. He has sealed you as His and as such nothing can remove you from that.
You are His and as such He knows you and He knows what you need.
He will provide for you when you have humbled yourself to asking Him and resting in Him and not yourself.
When we rest in Him and trust Him in everything, His pleasure rests on us.
He understands everything that is going on in your life and if you are one of His cry out to Him and make your needs known. He wants you to give your worries and concerns to Him.
We see this in 1 Pet. 5:71
7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.
Peter 5:7 ESV
And again in Phil. 4:6-7
6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6–7 ESV
And before them in Matt. 6:31-34
31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Matthew 6:31–34 ESV
He knows what you need because He knows you. He knows what you need because He understands.
He has sent Jesus into this world to die for us and rise again so we can have everlasting life with Him. He has shown us a love that far surpasses any love this world could ever dream of.
Since He has done that, I believe that we can cast all our worries and struggles on Him and He will carry them and us to where He wants us to be.
Christ is Enough
One night while conducting an evangelistic meeting in the Salvation Army Citadel in Chicago, Booth Tucker preached on the sympathy of Jesus. After his message a man approached him and said, “If your wife had just died, like mine has, and your babies were crying for their mother, who would never come back, you wouldn’t be saying what you’re saying.” Tragically, a few days later, Tucker’s wife was killed in a train wreck. Her body was brought to Chicago and carried to the same Citadel for the funeral. After the service the bereaved preacher looked down into the silent face of his wife and then turned to those attending. “The other day a man told me I wouldn’t speak of the sympathy of Jesus if my wife had just died. If that man is here, I want to tell him that Christ is sufficient. My heart is broken, but it has a song put there by Jesus. I want that man to know that Jesus Christ speaks comfort to me today.”
That comfort only comes from knowing that God understands and that in Him you can continue. Only through Him can you continue. He has provided what we need, it is up to us to rest in Him for that provision.
I ask today will you rest in the God who Understands?
