Psalms 77:12

In verses 2 to 6, it was all "my" — my this, that and the other. In verses 10 to 20, it is all "Your" — "Your years … Your wonders … Your work … Your doings … Your way … Your strength … Your arm … Your thunder … Your footsteps." What deliverance, what blessing, what strength there is in looking at God's things, after the weakness and humiliation of looking at our own.

It soothes the troubled soul of the psalmist to realize this: the sin of God's people can never be greater than the grace of God. He sees where the thought came from that God's people could be cast off. It came from the weakness of his own mind, which had judged God's ways towards His people by the way they had acted towards Him.

We exercise our minds when we use them for reflection and meditation. Of this the Psalms are full, speaking of meditation on God Himself, on His word and His works. It is often worth going over again in our minds the scriptures we have just read, the main point of a message we have heard, or some experience we have been through. That way we make sure we have taken in what it has to say to us.

This would include creation, then God's dealings in the flood, and His choosing and blessing of Abraham. It would include raising up the nation Israel, showing His power in their rescue from Egypt, and bringing them through the wilderness into the promised land, along with many other marvellous works of power and grace. Today we can add the wonders of the New Testament: the Son of God becoming man, His life of great goodness, His sacrifice of infinite value, His resurrection and His ascension back to heaven.

If our eyes were completely clear, where would we find one thing that could not be a text for speaking of the "works of the Lord"? And with what blessing to our own souls, as well as to the souls of others! Even the "wonders of old" are only the visible signs and marks of a way of working that everywhere carries the stamp of the same Author. Indeed that is what gives them their main charm and interest.

Now, meditating on all the work of the Lord, he found his tongue once more. He had found something which gave him a worthy theme. "I will … talk," he said, "of Your doings."

Verses 11, 12 describe the renewing effect on the tried spirit of turning like this from self to God. Meditation on His work first fills the heart with joyful assurance and a full sense of blessedness, and then makes the lips open in His praise: "I will talk of Your doings."

How infinitely precious it is to meditate like this on all God's work and to speak of His deeds! Thinking over all these wonderful works is more than enough to fill our hearts with eternal praise. In verse 19 we shall see that God's way is "in the sea," so far as our experience goes. Yet verse 13 gives us this assurance: "Your way, O God, is in the sanctuary." Certainly only in God's presence, in the calm of the sanctuary, will we truly learn God's way, and realize that no one could possibly be so great a God as our God, the God who does wonders.