Psalm 42:3-5 My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God? When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.

Would my confession of this condition do anyone any good? We all have things in this world we have to go thru that are unpleasant and difficult to undertake. I don’t have to be specific in my events to allow you to relate. How we feel within our souls says everything.

Sadly I have not been able to perform verse 4. I don’t have that particular lifting up in my life.  While I am alone, I am not alone. The presence of His countenance sustains me.

Psalm 27:13 I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

I do believe, even if not in fellowship that I do get to see the goodness of the Lord wherever I am in this land.

I’ve been stressed of late and the Lord sent relief and not thru the church or my friends, but in the world. This is His world and He can and does enact His will and grace even if the fellowship is missing.

What I discovered this past week in finding a little time to fellowship with members of my church is that I am out of practice. Being all that I can be in the Lord requires a practice of the God given gifts and the grace given. Like a body that has not exercised properly, my soul limped.

Philippians 2:1-2 If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.

This passage took on a whole new meaning for me this morning as I thought about a consolation prize. Strange that I should think that way about Christ but as I studied the Word I discovered something interesting. The Jews of Jesus’ time were waiting on the Messiah in exactly the same way we are waiting upon His second coming now.

Jesus came to save us from ourselves, to dispense with sin as an obstacle in relationship with God. The Jews of His day felt like they had a relationship and wanted the Messiah to come and save them from the Roman occupation. In many ways this is the same for us today. We want to be saved from this present world and come into His rest.

The consolation spoken of in Philippians 2:1 is a coming along beside of, not to take you out of your present condition but to walk with you thru it. To this end He sent the Comforter, as a consolation prize, but He is God and God is One, so you get Jesus also. The physical presence of the Messiah as the King of this world didn’t appear back then. As He told Pilate “My Kingdom is not of this world.” But it will be.

Revelation 20:2-4 will explain that millennial kingdom where Jesus will once again be in the world to reign as King of this world. In the meantime, we wait and are consoled by this great love He has shared with us and that we share with one another.

Meanwhile on earth we love one another.