I Remember the Deeds of the Lord

Log in to take the quiz and save your progress.

1. Observe

   List the five questions of verses 7-9. What do they collectively describe?

   • Will the Lord reject forever? Will he be favorable no more? Has his loving kindness vanished forever? Has his promise failed for all generations? Has God forgotten to be gracious? — they collectively describe the experience of God's essential character (love, promise, grace, mercy) seeming to have been withdrawn
   • Only two questions
   • Questions about earthly enemies
   • Questions about wealth

2. Observe

   What is the turning point (v. 10-11)?

   • Asaph receives a vision
   • Asaph decides: "I will appeal to this: the years of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember Yahweh's deeds. I will remember your wonders of old."
   • His situation improves
   • Enemies are destroyed

3. Interpret

   What does the role of memory in v. 11 suggest about sustaining faith in dark seasons?

   • Memory is irrelevant
   • New revelation is required
   • Memory of God's past deeds is a primary instrument for faith's survival when present experience offers no comfort; faith is sustained not only by what God is doing now but by what God has done before, and the discipline of recalling specific past deeds is a counterweight to the despair that focuses only on the present absence; this is why Scripture so often instructs God's people to remember
   • Only emotions matter

4. Interpret

   What does "your footprints were not known" (v. 19) say about trusting God when his working cannot be traced?

   • God doesn't actually work
   • Trust requires visible evidence
   • That God's most decisive guidance is often invisible — the path through the sea was real and led to safety, but it left no footprints to study or imitate; this means faith must often trust that God is leading even when the evidence of his leading is undetectable in the moment; clarity often comes only on the far side, when the people are safely through and can look back; in the middle, trust is the operative reality
   • God always leaves clear evidence

5. Apply

   What would change if Asaph's level of desperation entered one's prayers?

   • Nothing would change
   • Prayer would become unbiblical
   • Prayer would become more honest, more biblical, and more whole — the entire range of spiritual experience would have its language; God would be addressed as the actual heart speaks rather than as the polished surface; the relief of unmasked communion would replace the strain of pious performance; the believer would also discover that God can bear such prayer, since Scripture itself authorizes it
   • Prayer would become inappropriate

6. Apply

   What specific deeds of God can one return to when present experience is dark?

   • Generic vague memories
   • Specific particular acts in one's own life — conversion, sustaining through past crisis, providential meetings, healings, answered prayer, deliverance from temptation, daily provision — and the larger redemptive-historical deeds (creation, exodus, cross, resurrection) that anchor every believer's story; writing these down creates a concrete archive that can be consulted when memory fails in the dark
   • Other people's stories only
   • Stories that haven't happened

Your journal

Write your own answers — they save automatically, and only you can see them.

Log in to write and save journal answers.