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ANSWERED PRAYER: The Rev. Michael Dobbs did not have to have surgery yesterday! Doctor said not today nor in the foreseeable future! Great news and a reminder: Why do we pray? Because God answers prayer!
1 Hear us, Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock. You who sit enthroned between the cherubim, shine forth 2 before Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh. Awaken your might; come and save us. 3 Restore us, O God; make your face shine on us, that we may be saved. 4 How long, LORD God Almighty, will your anger smolder against the prayers of your people? 5 You have fed them with the bread of tears; you have made them drink tears by the bowlful. 6 You have made us an object of derision to our neighbors, and our enemies mock us. 7 Restore us, God Almighty; make your face shine on us, that we may be saved. (Psalm 80: 1-7 NIV)
The Methodist Youth Fellowship, aka MYF, was a tremendous force in my life. God used the MYF to make me stronger in faith, and it was in MYF that I felt God's call upon my life to enter into ordained ministry. I entered the MYF when the age limit was from 12 to 25. Yes, you read that right, 25 years of age. I got married when I was 25, but not while in the MYF; the age limit had changed by then, but if you remember how you were at 25, you might have been better off not being in MYF, or around those younger than 25. For my first MYF meeting, the president of the local MYF owned and drove a 1957 Chevy Bel Air. Yes, a dream car. And all the youth group fit into it. I have a vivid memory of a carful of boys and girls of different ages coming to my house to pick me up. I don't know how many of us were in that car, but who's lawful when you're having fun with Jesus? We drove around and then came to the church, had our meeting, then drove around some more and got dropped off. Who wouldn't love MYF? I know that the prayer that we closed with impacted me was the one that followed whatever the leader offered first, "May the Lord bless you and keep you; may the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you; may the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace," And thanks to some MYFers in either Tennessee or Nebraska, the phrase "Christ Above All." At first I did not know it came from the Bible, but I thought it was very powerful. (Numbers 6:24-26). A study of that prayer alone would make for a great devotional, but it made for a great boost of faith for me. Nothing beats the Lord's face shining upon us, as the psalmist shares in this passage.
Psalm 80 captures the ache of waiting for God to act. A major part of Advent is being patient as we await what the Lord is preparing. The psalm begins with a desperate cry: "Hear us, Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock. You who sit enthroned between the cherubim, shine forth before Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh. Awaken your might; come and save us." The psalmist addresses God with intimate and majestic titles—Shepherd who leads His flock, the One enthroned between the cherubim (referring to God's presence above the ark of the covenant). This is the God who guided Israel through the wilderness, who dwelt in the tabernacle and temple, who demonstrated His power through mighty acts. But now He seems distant, silent, inactive. The plea is urgent: "Awaken your might; come and save us." It's as if God is asleep while His people suffer. They need Him to shine forth, to display His power, to intervene decisively. This cry resonates with all who wait for God during dark seasons—when prayers seem unanswered, when circumstances grow worse, when God's power seems dormant. During Advent, we acknowledge this reality: waiting is hard, delay is painful, and longing for God to act is part of authentic faith.
Then comes the refrain that appears three times in this psalm: "Restore us, O God; make your face shine on us, that we may be saved." This is the heart cry of Advent—restore us. The word carries the meaning of turning back, bringing back to an original state, renewing what's been lost. Israel needs restoration from exile, from defeat, from the consequences of their own rebellion. But more fundamentally, they need God's favor restored—His face shining on them rather than being hidden. In Hebrew thought, God's shining face represents His blessing, approval, and presence. When God's face shines on His people, they experience peace, protection, and prosperity. When He hides His face, they experience abandonment, vulnerability, and despair. The Aaronic blessing captures this beautifully: "The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you" (Numbers 6:24-25). The psalmist isn't asking for political solutions or military victories as ends in themselves—he's asking for God's presence, God's favor, God's face turned toward them. That's what will save them. During Advent, we wait not just for Christmas Day but for the full restoration only God can bring—the healing of our brokenness, the mending of our fractured world, the return of God's favor, the shining of His face upon us.
But the psalm doesn't hide from painful reality. After the plea for restoration comes a lament: "How long, Lord God Almighty, will your anger smolder against the prayers of your people?" This is brutally honest worship. The psalmist acknowledges that God's anger is real and justified—Israel's suffering isn't random bad luck but divine discipline for their sin. Yet he questions how long it will continue. Even prayers themselves seem to provoke God's anger. Have you ever felt that way? That your prayers bounce off the ceiling, that God is not just silent but actively displeased? The psalmist continues: "You have fed them with the bread of tears; you have made them drink tears by the bowlful. You have made us an object of derision to our neighbors, and our enemies mock us." God Himself has given them tears instead of bread, sorrow instead of joy. Their suffering has become a spectacle—neighbors ridicule them, enemies mock them. Where is your God now? Why doesn't He help you? The pain is amplified by the fact that God's people become a joke, and by extension, God's name is mocked. This is the raw reality of waiting for restoration that hasn't yet come—the tears, the mockery, the sense that even God is against you.
Yet the refrain returns: "Restore us, God Almighty; make your face shine on us, that we may be saved." Despite the pain, despite the tears, despite the mockery, despite even God's apparent anger—the cry remains. Restore us. This isn't the prayer of those who have all the answers or who understand God's timing. It's the prayer of those who have nowhere else to turn, no other hope, no alternative savior. It's the prayer that refuses to give up even when everything suggests giving up would be reasonable. This is Advent faith—not triumphant certainty but persistent pleading, not comfortable confidence but desperate clinging, not easy answers but repeated cries for the one thing that matters: God's presence, God's favor, God's face shining upon us. The psalm teaches us that honest lament is not the opposite of faith but often its purest expression. To keep crying "restore us" when restoration hasn't come, to keep asking God to shine His face when He seems to be hiding it—this is faith that endures through the darkness.
Advent proclaims that God answered this ancient cry in a way beyond what the psalmist could imagine. God's face ultimately shone upon us in Jesus Christ—the light of the world, the glory of God in human flesh, Immanuel, God with us. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, God's face was literally shining on us in the face of a baby. The restoration we long for began with His first coming and will be completed at His second coming. We live between the "already" and the "not yet"—restoration has begun but isn't finished, God's face has shone in Christ but we still wait for the fullness of His glory to be revealed. During Advent, we pray with the psalmist "Restore us, O God" while also thanking God that in Jesus, He has already begun the restoration we desperately need. We wait not in despair but in hope, not wondering if God will answer but confident that He has answered in Christ and will answer fully when Christ returns.
PRAYER: Shepherd of Israel, hear our cry for restoration—we bring You our tears, our weariness from waiting, our longing for Your face to shine upon us; thank You that in Jesus You have already begun the restoration we seek, shining Your face upon us in His birth, life, death, and resurrection; help us wait with faith that persists through darkness, trusting that what You began in Bethlehem You will complete when Christ returns, in His name, amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Write your own honest "How long, O Lord?" prayer to God about an area where you're waiting for restoration, then follow it with the refrain "Restore us, O God; make your face shine on us, that we may be saved," practicing faith that persists even through lament.
I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God and you matter to me. Make others' lives matter by sharing the joy of Jesus with them.
Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.
