psalm 30:11-12

"You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness, That my soul may sing praise to You and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever"

The Lord is good, amen?! I love His Word. He reveals Himself through His never changing Word. I'm challenged daily to read it, to know it, to study it, to apply it, to share it with others. Beginning to study His Word is sometimes overwhelming. Where do we start? Well...we start with the text. What does it say?

I love the Psalms. In them we see the heart of God, as well as the heart of those seeking to follow Him. In Psalm 30, we see several things, but mainly I see the mercy and graciousness of a loving, hearing God. The text says that God has "turned for me my mourning into dancing". Mourning for what? Should I be mourning? Christ says in the gospels, "blessed are those who mourn"...ok so that seems to answer the question of "Should we?"...but why should we mourn? I mourn because of my sinful condition, my lack of goodness, my lack of righteousness, my inability to please God. I mourn over the sins of others as well, that they don't have an understanding of a Just and Forgiving God.

I'm sure we can all remember when we were young and our parents told us to stop crying. Or maybe when a friend told us "not to be so sad" I think sometimes that mindset hinders us from seeing what the text says. It doesn't say that God took merely took away our mourning, it says that he turned our mourning into dancing. What a glorious exchange! Therefore, our response is Psalm 30:12. We sing. We praise. We do not remain silent, but instead we give thanks!

That my friends is the gospel.