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My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, \u201cWhere is your God?\u201d These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the Mighty One with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng. Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. (Psalm 42:3-5)

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Back in 2011, I spent some time in Bethlehem immersed in a study of the conflict between Israel and Palestine.\xa0 A Lutheran church we visited there was partnered with an organization that taught the arts to youth.\xa0 Dance, painting, drama, poetry.\xa0 They said, \u201cwe often get the question about why, given the pressing needs of just surviving in the midst of so much suffering, why we invest scarce resources in something so seemingly frivolous as the arts.\u201d

I\u2019m reminded of that conversation as we pass through this second lockdown.\xa0 It seems that most of us have switched over into survival mode.\xa0 Our passions, creativity, and hope for a brighter day just aren\u2019t stirred like they were the first time round last Spring.\xa0 We\u2019re tired.\xa0 We\u2019re done.\xa0 The isolation has flattened our experience and sucked the life and colour out of our days.\xa0 So we just trudge along in survival mode.

The Psalmist paints a good picture of this: our souls are downcast and disturbed within us.\xa0 People are wondering and doubting where God is in this whole mess as the church looks back on those days when we \u201cused to go to the house of God.\u201d\xa0 Tears have been a companion as we witness to death and deep pain and illness among our loved ones.

But then in the midst of this work of just surviving through the suffering, the Psalmist turns and talks to their own soul, making a strange, counterintuitive choice.\xa0 \u201cPut your hope in God my soul, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.\u201d \xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0

Why did that organization in Bethlehem invest in training Palestinian youth in the arts?\xa0 \u201cBecause,\u201d they said, \u201cwhen this conflict is over, we\u2019ll need to know more than just how to survive, we\u2019ll need to know how to live.\u201d

When the day comes that this pandemic is over, we too will need to remember how to do more than just survive.\xa0 We too will need to remember how to live.\xa0 I don\u2019t know of a better way to keep the hope of life in Christ alive within our soul than to face down our dark valleys, disturbed hearts, and downcast souls, and, like the Psalmist, choose to praise the Lord anyway.\xa0 Even, and especially, when we don\u2019t feel like it.\xa0 \xa0\xa0

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*There won\u2019t be a devotion on Monday because of Family Day.\xa0 We\u2019ll resume on Tuesday, then enter into our Lenten series on Ash Wednesday.

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