The thoughts of unbelief can always be argued down if we but stop to meditate upon God’s great deliverances of former days,
for He is a God who changes not.
Psalm 1
1 I cried unto God with my voice, even unto God with my voice; and he gave ear unto me.
2 In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord: my sore ran in the night, and ceased not: my soul refused to be comforted.
3 I remembered God, and was troubled: I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. Selah.
4 Thou holdest mine eyes waking: I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
5 I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times.
6 I call to remembrance my song in the night: I commune with mine own heart: and my spirit made diligent search.
7 Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will he be favourable no more?
8 Is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his promise fail for evermore?
9 Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? Selah.
10 And I said, This is my infirmity: but I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High.
11 I will remember the works of the LORD: surely I will remember thy wonders of old.
12 I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings.
13 Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary: who is so great a God as our God?
14 Thou art the God that doest wonders: thou hast declared thy strength among the people.
15 Thou hast with thine arm redeemed thy people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. Selah.
16 The waters saw thee, O God, the waters saw thee; they were afraid: the depths also were troubled.
17 The clouds poured out water: the skies sent out a sound: thine arrows also went abroad.
18 The voice of thy thunder was in the heaven: the lightnings lightened the world: the earth trembled and shook.
19 Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and thy footsteps are not known.
20 Thou leddest thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
Psalm 1 – J. Vernon McGee
Psalm 77:1-10 – “Doth His Promise Fail?”
There is a strong resemblance between this psalm and Habakkuk 3. It may be divided at the Selahs. The psalmist’s anguish, Psalm 77:1-3. It is well to give expression to grief. Do not lock it in your breast. Even in the thick darkness reach out your hands toward God. Your finger-tips will find themselves touched by the divine response. Refuse to be comforted by Christian work, or by the diversions of society and business, or by the exercise of a strong will. Open the wound to God; He will heal it and wipe away your tears.
The contrast between past and present, Psalm 77:4-9. In the scarcity of his comfort, David was glad to live on his old stores, as are bees in winter. He specially recalled his song in the night, which is probably the equivalent of that glorying in tribulation of which the New Testament is full. Let us answer those questions of the psalmist: Will the Lord cast off? No; Romans 11:1. Will He be favorable? Yes; Lamentations 3:32. Is His mercy clean gone? No; Psalm 103:17. Doth his promise fail? No; Hebrews 6:18. Hath God forgotten to be gracious? No; Exodus 34:6. Hath He shut up his mercies? No; Lamentations 3:22-23. He is Jehovah, and changes not. —Through the Bible Day by Day
Psalm 77:11-20 – “The God That Doest Wonders”
Go back to the past. Consider the manner in which God has stood by His saints in the days of old, in the years of ancient time. What He did for them He is prepared to do again. He cannot cast us off. When once He begins He will continue. The train may be lost in a dark tunnel, but it will shoot out again into the radiant daylight. Through the hard Wilderness God led His people into the land of milk and honey. It is thy infirmity that leads thee to doubt Him. Like John the Baptist, you may be enclosed in a dungeon-cell of adverse circumstances, but remember the long years in which the right hand of the Most High has wrought for His people.
Compare Psalm 77:13 and Psalm 77:19. God’s way is in the sea—it is impossible to track His footsteps—but it is also in the sanctuary! In other words, however perplexing His providences may appear, they are governed by His redeeming love for His own, and are consistent with His perfect holiness. His ways may be veiled in mystery, but He leads His people as the shepherd His flock. Do not look down at your path, but up into His face. —Through the Bible Day by Day
Psalm 77:19-20—Thy way is in the sea.… Thou leddest thy people like a flock.
This is almost the climax of sublimity, because of the contrast of the majesty and gentleness of God. In the first of these verses you have the former. God is described as wading through mighty oceans as a man might ford some tiny stream. The Atlantic with fathomless depths is no more to Him than a brook to us—not so much. But as the brook hides the footmarks which are imprinted on its soft ooze, so are God’s footprints hidden. We cannot detect his great and wonderful secrets. We are unable to gauge his reasons. He marches through the ages with steps we cannot track. For his orbit there is no standard of computation.
But dread Him not. This mighty God has the tender heart of a shepherd. He leads his people like a flock; not overdriving, but carrying the lambs in his bosom, and gently leading those that are with young. Mightier than the mightiest, but meeker than the meekest! The Lion of Judah, but the Lamb of Bethlehem! Prince and Savior; Fellow of Jehovah; and yet the smitten Shepherd of the scattered flock!
Nor is this all. It is a human hand that leads the flock. God does his work through the hands of human and fallible agents. You have not recognized Him; but had your eyes been opened, you would have seen his leading in the gentle hand of that mother, in the strong grasp of that friend, in the trembling fingers of that young girl, in the tiny hand of your little babe. Ah, how many good and tender hands have molded and fashioned our lives!—but beneath them all there have been the leadings of the great God, convoying us through deep and dark waters to our fold. —Our Daily Homily