Hey friends, I'm Rachel Grohl and I'm your host for the Hearing Jesus podcast, where I help you to know God and to make him known.

Today's psalm holds this beautiful picture of restoration, and while we can praise God for the restorative work that he's doing here as well as our own lives,

it doesn't mean that that restorative work is always easy. In fact, the work of restoration,

even when God is doing the restoring, is often hard. And so we're going to explore that a little bit

today and think through what that means in our own lives. So starting at verse one, I'm reading from the NIV. It says, my heart is steadfast, O God. I will sing and make music with all my soul. Awake, harp, and lyre. I will awaken the dawn. I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations. I will sing of you among the peoples. For great is your love higher than the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens, and let your glory be over all the earth. Save us and help us

with your right hand, that those you love may be delivered. God has spoken from his sanctuary. In triumph,

I will parcel out Shechem and measure off the valley of Sukketh. Gilead is mine. Manassah is mine. Ephraim is my helmet. Judah, my scepter. Moab is my wash basin. Upon Edom, I toss my sandal. Over Philistia, I shout in triumph. Who will bring me to the fortified city? Who will lead me to eat him? Is it not you,

O God, you have rejected us and no longer go out with our armies? Give us aid against the enemy,

for the help of man is worthless. With God, we will gain the victory, and he will trample

down our enemies. Now, as I'm reading this, it may sound like some of these words are familiar.

And if that is the case, I want you to know that you're right, because this Psalm is actually

a combination.

There's words from Psalm 57 and also words from Psalm 60 that the psalmist has used in combination.

And he's doing in a way that will express this confidence that God will at last

rescue his people and give them victory over their enemies. But what's interesting is as we see

it here, it means something a little bit different than when it meant the first time we heard it.

That's a really interesting technique that the writers of the Psalms sometimes use, where they will reapply different Psalms for different purposes in different circumstances.

And I think that's super interesting, but it also reminds us somewhat of God's nature because even though our circumstances may change, God remains the same throughout those circumstances.

God's nature never changes. The psalmist is essentially using the combination of these two

Psalms to really reaffirm the Lord's promise of the land of Canaan, which is a reassurance of

these returning exiles once they come back that their

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