"I cry aloud to God,

cry aloud to God that he may hear me."

Elsewhere the scriptures read "pour out your troubles before him" and "call on me in the day of distress."  Our Lord wants us to unburden ourselves before him, as a child to its Father.  He will not be upset, he will not grow weary.  He has more than enough strength to listen to our troubles.  Or perhaps we do not do so because we fear nothing will become of it, that our tears will not be wiped away?  Even if that were true (though this psalm shows differently) it would still be worth doing so for the sake of building that relationship with God.

"My hands were raised at night without ceasing."

We must persevere in prayer.  We cannot end our prayer when bored or because of tiredness or inconvenience.  When your heart moves you, you must drink your prayer to the dregs, lest next time your heart does not so move you and you lose all taste and instinct for prayer.

"My soul refused to be consoled."

The sincere soul rejects all easy answers and formulas and will only be satisfied with Truth.

"I remembered my God...I pondered.

I thought of the days of long ago and remembered the years long past."

The heart now turns from crying out to God more as an object of deliverance and begins to enter into a spirit of recollection on who God is and his presence throughout history.  This is the movement of grace is the soul; the Lord is beginning to answer the hearts' prayer.

"You withheld sleep from my eyes."

God is keeping the psalmist awake; He wants him to pray.  "Stay awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial." (Matthew 26.41)

"At night I mused within my heart.

I pondered and my spirit questioned."

The soul continues to calm down from its earlier crying aloud.  It recollects and enters into an interior prayer, seeking God and his ways within the heart through meditation.

"Will the Lord reject us forever?

Does God...withhold his compassion?"

Once the soul calms down it begins asking the logical questions which arise out of its earlier distress.  Is it really possible that God has forgotten me?  I know that is how it seems, but is that possible?  "Even though a mother forget her child I will not forget you."

"The way of the most high has changed."

The psalmist knows instinctively this is not true.  He is simply saying that his distress had its origin in this temptation.

It is we that change, God never changes.  We change from year to year, even day to day, emotionally, mentally, physically.  We mature, our vision changes, our view of others, God, ourselves.  So it is natural that our changing concept of God through the days gives rise to the concept of a God who himself changes.  We think that when we are bad he loves us less, when we feel distant from him he really is distant, when we do not persevere in our prayer he withdraws from us grudgingly.  We tend to think he acts toward us as we would act toward ourselves if we were God.  Such is the limiting measure of a weak faith.  It does not understand or dare to hope in limitless love.  It is constricted in the concept of love which is earned.

"I said: 'This is what causes my grief; that the way of the most high has changed."

The soul now realizes fully what has been the source of its anguish: the false idea of a changing God.  The psalmist uses his head to get his heart out of misery.  God does not change - he is changeless!  The same God who was with me before is with me now.  It is I who have changed.

The rest of the psalm deals with the all-important idea of remembrance in the spiritual life.  For the psalmist it is remembrance of the events of salvation history at that time which restores him.  For us however, these events foreshadowed the great and awesome event of Christ's redemption.  And so the invitation here for us is to remember the great event of Christ's passion, death and resurrection.  It is an invitation to remember God's love.

Remembrance is critical in the spiritual life.  Remembrance of Israel's redemption, remembrance of Christ's redemption, remembrance of God's personal actions throughout our own life.  Lack of remembrance leads to anguish when we change.  At its worst it can lead to the kind of scoffing Peter addresses to those who say "nothing changes, all things continue as always!" (2 Peter 3.3-7)

After Israel's exodus from Egypt Moses exhorted the people: "But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life." (Deuteronomy 4.9)

Remembrance is so important that God set it before us as one of his ten commandments.  He established an entire day to be set aside each week for it.  "Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy....remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there." (Deuteronomy 5.12-15)

Remember, O my soul, during times of distress how God has redeemed you.  Remember his never-changing love.  This glorifies God as is his due and brings peace back to you.