Already Done

 November 29, 2023

“I will praise You, O Lord, with my whole heart; 

I will tell of all Your marvelous works. 

I will be glad and rejoice in You; 

I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High. 

When my enemies turn back, 

They shall fall and perish at Your presence. 

For You have maintained my right and my cause; 

You sat on the throne judging in righteousness. 

You have rebuked the nations, 

You have destroyed the wicked; 

You have blotted out their name forever and ever.”

—Psalm 9:1-5 

This psalm is interesting for the way it begins. David is well aware of matters that need to be dealt with; later in the psalm he declares that God will judge the world, be a refuge for the oppressed, remembers the cry of the humble—all statements of confidence and faith. But he begins not with requests for the present time or for the future. He begins with praise for all God has done, finishing with four mentions of the words “you have…” 

What is interesting to me is that of all the things he says God has done, not one of them seems to actually have happened. Look around—does it look like righteous judgment is occurring anywhere? Are the nations rebuked? Are the wicked destroyed? Is their name blotted out? It could be argued that many of the nations that were powerful back then no longer exist today, but David is speaking as if it had already happened in his lifetime.

When we look around us, injustice, greed, perversity, and violence can be seen everywhere we turn in the here and now. But God isn’t limited to time as we are. We measure time by the spinning of the earth and its journey around the sun. We are born, age, and die. But God declares himself to be “I Am,” eternally present, never changing. The challenge for us is to step out of our perspective and into God’s, where the victory is already won, and because that is so, we can praise God even for things we cannot now see—the healing of the body, the salvation of a wandering child or spouse, the provision that by human standards seems impossible. 

It’s already done! From the very beginning, you were chosen and Christ was ordained to be your Savior (Ephesians 1:4, 1 Peter 1:20). God has already accomplished what you and I need. We may not yet see it, and may need to pray for it, but we do so with confidence, not with wistful thinking.