Loving Heavenly Father, we're just so grateful to you for your word and especially this book of Psalms.

It is so rich, has such an impact, so powerful, so applicable to our lives, all these generations later.

Lord, we're so thankful that you inspired the writers to pen these songs, these psalms, that here we are

in the year 2019, reading, studying, understanding, and applying to our lives. So, Lord, will you bless our time together in your word?

Will you speak clearly to us? Help us, Lord, to give you our undivided attention so our minds

don't wander because we don't want to miss anything that you

have for us, anything that you desire to minister to us. So Lord, get our attention and keep our

attention as only you can by the Holy Spirit we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, let's jump into this contemplation of Asaph.

Verse one, oh God, why have you cast us off forever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your

pasture? Remember your congregation which you have purchased of

old, the tribe of your inheritance which you have redeemed, this Mount Zion where you have dwelt.

Lift up your feet, verse three, to the perpetual desolations.

The enemy has damaged everything in the sanctuary.

Your enemies roar in the midst of your meeting place.

They set up their banners for signs.

They seem like men, verse verse five who lift up axes among the thick trees and now they break down its carved work all at once with axes and hammers. You have set fire to your

sanctuary. They have defiled the dwelling place of your name to the ground.

They said in their hearts, let us destroy them altogether. They have burned up all the meeting places of God in the land.

We do not see our signs. There is no longer any prophet,

nor is there any among us who knows how long. Oh God, how long will the adversary reproach?

Will the enemy blaspheme your name forever?

Can you just hear the cry of the psalmist's heart, Lord?

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