In your sport, what you have done lately matters a lot.

Imagine if you dropped the last five passes thrown to you. Your failures would be fresh and powerful in your mind. That’s how Asaph was feeling when he wrote Psalm 77.

Israel was in a slump. Asaph was too, and he wrote, “Will the Lord reject forever? Will He never show His favor again? Has His unfailing love vanished forever? Has His promise failed for all time? Has God forgotten to be merciful?” (Psalm 77:7-9).

Then he shifted gears, as the Psalmists often did. He wrote: “Then I thought, ‘To this I will appeal: the years when the Most High stretched out His right hand. I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember Your miracles of long ago’” (Psalm 77:10,11).

He recalled the time God parted the Red Sea for Moses, Aaron and the Israelites.

Picture Asaph sitting in his room feeling abandoned by God, but finding consolation from miracles God performed a couple hundred years earlier. It’s amazing he found reassurance from God’s acts he never saw or experienced.

Athlete, do you shift gears like Asaph? Do you ever start with a “God, what have You done for me lately?” attitude, then change directions and find consolation from God’s old deeds which you did not eyewitness?

That shifting of gears is going from focusing on what we are seeing and experiencing to what we are not seeing and not experiencing. In other words, walking by faith, not sight.

That is not easy. We want to feel God’s favor and victory now. It seems like God’s old miracles have no bearing on today. We want to know what God has done for us lately.

You might wonder, “What does God parting the Red Sea have to do with my inner conflict?” or, “What does Jesus being seated at the right hand of the mighty God have to do with this painful breakup?”

But in reality, God’s acts in history have tremendous consequences which reach deep into every moment. God’s past signs and wonders have everything to do with your present situation, no matter what it is.

In sports, “what have you done for me lately” means a lot. But in life, God’s old acts are sufficient for our every need today.

Action: Dwell on one of God’s antique miracles and consider how it impacts the most frustrating thing in your life.