Learning to wait on a God for whom “one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Pet 3:8).
There is debate about the historical setting for Psalm 74. Some say it couldn’t be the Asaph of David’s time, because the psalm pictures the destruction of the temple. Notice that this is a Maschil psalm, one for instruction. Asaph is called a “seer” (2 Chron 29:30), or prophet. Often commentators point out this fact, and then immediately discount Psalm 74 as from his pen because it speaks of future events! Couldn’t this be prophetic? Would the Lord not have made sure there were songs in place to comfort and instruct those passing through such a trauma? The temple was destroyed twice—by Babylon and Rome—and it will be desolated again at the end of history. How fitting to have such a psalm to fortify His people for that. Notice three prayer-appeals in the psalm. Asaph begins with a Plaintive Cry (vv 1-3). In between the first and middle prayer, he describes the Pitiful Conditions (vv 4-9) of God’s people being persecuted. The middle prayer (vv 10-11) is a Pointed Claim: “Why do You withdraw Your hand, even Your right hand? Take it out of Your bosom and destroy them.” The latter portion (vv 12-17), before the closing prayer, proclaims their Powerful Champion. He certainly knows how to break things (vv 13, 14, 15)! But “God is my King from of old, working salvation,” too (v 12). He knows how to fix things! Asaph’s closing prayer is a Personal Call (vv 18-23) for God to “Remember…Do not forget…Remember…Do not forget” (vv 18, 19, 22, 23). Thankfully, there’s no danger of that. The timing is His: “The day is Yours, the night also is Yours” (v 16). And the territory is His: “You have set all the borders of the earth” (v 17). Where He works and when He works is all according to His perfect plan.