Psalm 62-A "Alone… Only"

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Waiting in Silence

"For God alone my soul waits in silence;
from him comes my salvation.
He only is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken." (62:1-2)

I love the first line of this psalm! "For God alone," which means my trust and worship are not directed elsewhere. "My soul waits in silence," which indicates a patience and level of trust that is not always crying out in distress but at times waiting patiently with mouth closed and eyes and ears open to see and hear what God intends to do. How much of our prayer time is simply listening? This verse reminds me of the “weaned child” imagery in Psalm 131:2,

“But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
    like a weaned child with its mother;
    like a weaned child is my soul within me.”

How wonderful to be able to quiet our soul to wait in silence for our Lord to do what he does best! This statement in verses 1-2 is repeated almost word-for-word in verses 5-6. It must be a message we need to hear more than once...However, I am glad not to have been greatly shaken.

Another commentator describes such stillness before God as follows,

Stillness before God has exercised the frequently dominant elements of life—fearful anxiety, disappointment, pain of abuse—and has become the source of assurance of the adequacy of divine power and divine willingness to help those who are faithful. When we remain calm in trust before God, we grow in strength and discipline.[1]

An ‘Ak - ‘Ak Psalm

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One of the most notable characteristics of this psalm is the repeated use (6x) of the Hebrew word 'aḵ. My heading is making a play on “Ack-Ack,” which was a WWII slang term for anti-aircraft gunfire that pilots would have to fly through on their way to their targets. It had a way of getting your attention. So to the word 'aḵ in this psalm. Scholars have consistently weighed in on this word. Without getting too technical, I think it might be helpful to examine the meaning and use of this word. 'Aḵ, is a Hebrew particle that primarily communicates emphasis. It can mean truly/surely, alone, only, or but. However, it is often not translated. In English, we do the same thing by putting the accent on a specific word when speaking or by using italics when writing.

When translated, the sense is either an emphatic affirmative or an emphatic restrictive. Many times, no translation is preferable to either of the above alternatives.[2]

Michael Wilcock not only speaks to the meaning of the word, but also to how this incident itself was perhaps an emphatic moment in the life of David.

At this period of his life. Maybe more than in any other, it was [impressed] on David that his hope really is in God alone. Six times he expresses that quivering awareness by the little word 'aḵ. It can mean ‘truly’ (v.4, fully) or ‘only’ (vv. 1,2,5,6, alone), or perhaps both… Instead of trying to find a word for it, an English translation might simply put in italics the words that follow it. ‘It is in God that my soul finds rest,’ says David, ‘he is my rock’ …As Tate says, 'aḵ statements, “do not come naturally and easily’. We may mouth them glibly at any time, but Psalm 62 is for the times when bitter experience makes us mean them.[3]

Indeed, we can easily say that we trust or look to God alone for help, be it salvation, protection, or direction, but it is much more difficult to live as though it were true. I am reminded of the father of the demonized son, who, when Jesus said, “‘All things are possible for one who believes,” immediately answered, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:23-24).

In the next verses, the writer interrogated his attackers, and then, in an aside to his audience, he described the heart and motivation of such oppressors.

How long will all of you attack a man
    to batter him,
    like a leaning wall, a tottering fence?
They only plan to thrust him down from his high position.
    They take pleasure in falsehood. (v.3-4)

Photo by Samuel Cruz on Unsplash

The psalmist’s attackers were like an enemy’s battering ram looking to breach a city’s defenses. LOTR fans easily think of Grond, the great ram used to breach the gates of Minas Tirith. Home improvement show fans might picture the sledgehammers and pry bars used for a demo-day kitchen tear-down, removing useless walls and old kitchen cabinets.

Elsewhere in the OT, similar imagery is used in Isaiah 30:13 but in a different context. There, it describes the wicked, whose sin, in rejecting God’s words of prophetic warning, is like a bulging wall that will suddenly collapse.

Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel,
“Because you despise this word
    and trust in oppression and perverseness
    and rely on them,
therefore this iniquity shall be to you
    like a breach in a high wall, bulging out and about to collapse,
    whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant;
and its breaking is like that of a potter's vessel
    that is smashed so ruthlessly
that among its fragments not a shard is found
    with which to take fire from the hearth,
    or to dip up water out of the cistern.” (Isaiah 30:12-14, empasis mine)

In our psalm, the first part of verse 4 uses ‘ak once again to emphasize that these enemies only want to push him down (e.g., from being king). We see people/groups like this today, whose only focus is to remove a given leader/group from power, above and beyond any effort to work for the common good of the country, state, town, or church.

In the second part of verse 4, they are described not only as duplicitous but as enjoying the lies. Outwardly, they say the right things, but inwardly, they enjoy their haughty and dismissive cursing.

In contrast, in verse 5, the psalmist reminds himself to do otherwise.

For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, 
    for my hope is from him.

This is a reiteration of his statement from verse 1, this time as a reminder to himself. This silence is not a break in communication, but here is in contrast to those in v. 4 who speak blessing but believe cursing in their hearts. The silence which the psalmist urges to be “for God alone” means that he should have no inward cursing or complaint towards God, for “hope/salvation is from him.”

Photo by Guillaume Brocker on Unsplash

In difficult and tumultuous times, will we choose to believe in our hearts and speak with our mouths that the Triune God is the strong, loving one who protects, saves, and lifts us up?

He only is my rock and my salvation,
    my fortress; I shall not be shaken.
On God rests my salvation and my glory;
    my mighty rock, my refuge is God. (Psalm 62:6-7)

Note: I will bring a devotional reflection from the second half of Psalm 62 in my next post.

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[1] Marvin E. Tate, Psalms 51-100 (WBC, Vol. 20), Word, 122.

[2] TWOT, Vol. 1, 39.

[3] Michael Wilcock, The Message of Psalms 1-72, IVP Downers Grove, IL, 2001, 220-221.

Psalm 55:1-8 Restless Prayer Syndrome

James J. Tissot,
'David Quits Jerusalem' (1898-1902),
The Jewish Museum, New York.

This psalm contains David’s lament at the betrayal he suffered at the hands of his closest counselor. Previously, I have focused my comments mostly on verses from the middle part of the psalm (e.g., 9-11, 12-14, 16-18). So, for this post, I will do something new and focus on the first eight verses while not ignoring the rest of the psalm.

Give ear to my prayer, O God,
    and hide not yourself from my plea for mercy!
Attend to me, and answer me;
    I am restless in my complaint and I moan,
because of the noise of the enemy,
    because of the oppression of the wicked.
For they drop trouble upon me,
    and in anger they bear a grudge against me. (v.1-3)

Perhaps you have seen the endless commercials for prescription drugs for an array of ailments including “restless leg syndrome.” While I don’t suffer from such an ailment, there are times when I can’t get comfortable sitting still. Recently, this happened when a headache kept me from a good night’s sleep. When thinking about these experiences and reading Psalm 55, I wonder if David suffered from a “restless prayer syndrome” where he couldn’t stop pouring out his complaints and prayers for God’s delivering mercy. I wonder if our focus is on our complaint or our plea for mercy in times like that. We all could name people who are heavy on the complaint and light on asking for mercy… because we don’t want to admit that we need it. While David had legitimate personal and corporate complaints, he knew all too well that he constantly needed divine mercy. Also in David’s favor was that “he knew a guy” upon whom he should cast his burdens… the Lord Himself!

My current office is in a building shared with a large Christian preschool. Every morning I hear a cacophony of crying and some pretty regular tantrums that pierce the wall and assault my ears. While those children are not enemies, I sometimes feel restless and even groan a bit because the noise is exhausting. However, some people experience far worse and face debilitating pain, either physically, or relationally. Still, others are persecuted by those in power because of their faith, moral stands, or political beliefs, and they take those situations to God in prayer.

At the time this psalm was written, David had not only been betrayed by his closest counselor (Ahithophel) but also by his own son (Absalom). Rather than fight for his life and rights, David fled for his life out of Jerusalem (See the narrative in 2 Samuel 15-16). Yet, in his heart, he didn’t go so far that he couldn’t hear their shouting and crude behavior from the city walls (v. 9-11). Such wanton hate manifested in violence and immorality grieved David and had him looking for an exit strategy to fly away and find peace.

Mourning Dove. Photo: Cliff Fahey Sr.

My heart is in anguish within me;
    the terrors of death have fallen upon me.
Fear and trembling come upon me,
    and horror overwhelms me.
And I say, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove!
    I would fly away and be at rest;
yes, I would wander far away;
    I would lodge in the wilderness; Selah
I would hurry to find a shelter
    from the raging wind and tempest.” (v.4-8)

Yet, he was not a dove who could fly away. He was responsible for the people with him and was about to be pursued. I can picture every step he took being punctuated with prayer for mercy and longing for God to bring the counsel of the wicked to an end.

Destroy, O Lord, divide their tongues;
    for I see violence and strife in the city.
Day and night they go around it
    on its walls,
and iniquity and trouble are within it;
    ruin is in its midst;
oppression and fraud
    do not depart from its marketplace. (v. 9-11)

David poetically observes seven wrong things among those who didn't fear God and betrayed their friends. Can you find them all? [*See answer below] This description in v. 10-11 reminds me of Habakkuk’s complaint to the Lord (Hab. 1:2-4) which was answered by the revelation that righteous judgment would come swiftly at the hands of the Babylonian army.

David mourns the loss of his former friend and counselor. Sometimes people will fail us even when they don’t mean to. Others will intentionally betray their friends when they see some profit in doing so. David experienced it 3500 years ago. Such behavior is still present today. Paul warned Timothy,

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.  (2 Tim. 3:1-5)

There are plenty of problems for us to pray about, and plenty of areas in our hearts we need to surrender to the leading of the Holy Spirit. We should not love ourselves more than we love God and others. If we love Jesus, and we know that he loves us, we want to talk to him about most everything. Our prayer life can develop into a running conversation where we talk to the Lord and then listen for how he will answer not in a transactional way but in a relational sense. We will enjoy sheltering in his presence.

The world around us is often unsafe because it is filled with people with evil in their hearts. David minces no words in trusting that the Lord will bring justice upon the betrayers and verses 15 and 23 are especially intense and even prophetic.

Not only was David restlessly consistent and even relentless in calling on the Lord God but toward the end of the psalm, he encourages the readers/hearers to cast their burden on the Lord who will never betray.

Cast your burden on the LORD,
and he will sustain you;
he will never permit
the righteous to be moved." (v.22)

Prayer doesn’t need to be a duty or a discipline when we are in need. In those times we will pray restless prayers like David longing for the comfort and deliverance found in God. In times of joy and abundance, we will pray out of an overflow of gratitude.

I hope that we never get comfortable with a prayer-less life. May the Spirit use either need or joy to make us restless to speak to our Savior! Flying away like a dove rarely brings true rest. Instead, lasting peace comes from running to the Lord who rewards those who seek him (Heb. 11:6).

What a precious truth it is that he is with us no matter where we are or what we face.

 

*Answer: In verses 10-11 David poetically observes seven wrong things when the city was in the hands of those faithless betrayers. Violence, strife, iniquity, trouble, ruin, oppression, and fraud.

 

Psalm 54 David's Data Breach in Ziph

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After the epigraph, which helps to set the specific context of this psalm, this short, seven-verse psalm gets right after it. There is no gradual build-up, no extended metaphors or subtle poetry. David had a problem and was quite direct in his prayer to the only one who could save him.

The initial epigram reminds us that the Ziphites took David’s personal information and sold it on the dark web to the bad actor, King Saul. They did it twice! The first time was recorded in 1 Samuel 23.

Then the Ziphites went up to Saul at Gibeah, saying, “Is not David hiding among us in the strongholds at Horesh, on the hill of Hachilah, which is south of Jeshimon? Now come down, O king, according to all your heart's desire to come down, and our part shall be to surrender him into the king's hand.” (1 Sam. 23:19-20)

A Ziph-like shot of the Judean Mts. Photo: Greg K. Dueker2011

King Saul commended them for this breach and asked them to keep spying on David (v.22-24). This information dump allowed Saul to hotly pursue David ‘round the mountain until reports of a Philistine raid arrived and Saul had to break off the chase. David named that place seh'-lah hammakh-lek-oth' or “The rock of escape.”

Later, in 1 Samuel 26, the Ziphites informed Saul about David again.

Then the Ziphites came to Saul at Gibeah, saying, “Is not David hiding himself on the hill of Hachilah, which is on the east of Jeshimon?” So Saul arose and went down to the wilderness of Ziph with three thousand chosen men of Israel to seek David in the wilderness of Ziph. And Saul encamped on the hill of Hachilah, which is beside the road on the east of Jeshimon. But David remained in the wilderness. (1 Sam. 26:1-3)

The Ziphites, by their treachery, violated the universal law of hospitality they should have kept toward the anointed one who lived in their midst. Understandably, David felt utterly betrayed, yet his focus was on the help of the Lord being better than the help of humanity.

From the beginning of this psalm, he mentions “your name” in parallel with “your might” as the answer to his cry for salvation and longing to be heard.

Photo by Matheus Ferrero on Unsplash

If God doesn’t do anything in answer to our prayers, then why would David pray so fervently that God would hear his prayer? He prayed that God would “hear” his prayer and give ear to his words because he fully believed that when God hears us, he acts as is natural for him to act—by saving his people, sharing his goodness, and bringing justice down upon the wicked! As I was thinking about the parallel structure of David’s request in v.2, “Hear my prayer/ give ear to the words of my mouth” it caused me to wonder how much of what we say is prayer and even how much of what we say do we want the Lord to hear? Ouch! Instead of ignoring God in my speech, what if “all the words of my mouth” were a prayer?

In v.3 the psalmist refers to “strangers/ ruthless men” … not so much foreign adversaries but those in Israel who did not practice the protective hospitality of God. Instead, they seek to kill the supplicant, which in this case was the young pre-king David. Why would they be so unneighborly? I would say it was the natural result of their selfishness… “They do not set God before themselves.”

Photo by Maël BALLAND on Unsplash

Will we struggle alone trusting our own strength and wisdom to contend for our rights, the respect we feel we deserve, and even a good return on our retirement accounts? Or will we like David trust God to be our “helper/upholder” (v.4)?

Behold, God is my helper;
    the Lord is the upholder of my life.

Being a helper is not just women’s work (as some misinterpret Gen 2:18,20) it is the faithful work of God! We need more warrior-helpers today! We can all appreciate those who encourage us in our difficulties with their words and actions. What if we, as the body of Christ, were more concerned about upholding others than knocking them down?

Some people are evil and thus unjust. Some show themselves to be our enemies, but it is not our job to destroy them, God will bring their wicked plans back upon them. Their evil intentions will come back to bite them... hard! This is less a Davidic imprecation than a statement of fact about how God works in the lives of his people.

He will return the evil to my enemies;
    in your faithfulness put an end to them. (v.5)

I am reminded of a verse in Proverbs that says, “Like a sparrow in its flitting, like a swallow in its flying, a curse that is causeless does not alight.” (Prov. 26:2) In their case there is cause in abundance!

The psalmist confidently declares that he will worship the Lord in an overflow of gratitude for deliverance… even though the deliverance has not happened yet. Let us not miss the “freewill offering” aspect of v. 6. The psalmist sees such sacrificial giving as joyful worship, not a begrudgingly compliant obligation.

With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to you;
    I will give thanks to your name, O Lord, for it is good. (v.6)

If we wait for everything to be perfect before we worship with our giving, it will likely never happen. There will always be one more problem to face, one more crisis to conquer, one more debt to pay, one more day to wait. The blessing available to us is that we can enter into victorious living even amid hardship if we choose a life of generous gratitude! We can enter the joy of the Lord right now! To this point, Paul commended the glad generosity of the Philippian church in Macedonia who gave despite severe circumstances.

We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord… (2 Cor. 8:1-3)

In concluding my comments on this psalm, I would say that once we confess, pray, put our trust in the Lord, gratefully worship, and by faith see the future victory we should not forget our testimony. We should be bold in telling the good things that God has done for us. Even if today’s issue has not yet been resolved in our experience, we can testify to how God has delivered us in the past.

For he has delivered me from every trouble,
    and my eye has looked in triumph on my enemies. (v.7)

What the enemy intends for evil, God in his amazing love can coopt and use for good. Waiting is hardly ever enjoyable, but trusting the Lord can smuggle contentment into almost any difficulty... even this election season. 

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How will we prepare for the coming week? 

Will we proactively ask for God’s help? 

Will we talk to the Lord about all that is happening in our lives? 

Will we respond to the challenges we face this week by committing them to the Lord’s justice and mercy? 

I hope so.

 

Psalm 51 Take Not Your Holy Spirit From Me

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This famous psalm contains the penitential prayer of David after his sin with Bathsheba became known. In 2 Samuel 12, the Lord sent the prophet Nathan to confront David for his sin. To understand the depth of grief in David’s prayer here in Psalm 51, it is helpful to reread how God delivered the message to David that prompted the prayer.

And the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him and said to him, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children. It used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guest who had come to him, but he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.” Then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.”

Allow me to interject here that this is a great metaphor for what sin does… it is the taking, killing, and consuming of another person’s pet lamb or something even more dear. Like any normal person, David was angered by the injustice in Nathan’s report. But there was more to the story.

Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. And I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. (2 Samuel 12:1-9)

Nathan came to the king with a compelling word picture that allowed David to emotionally pronounce judgment on another person over the hypothetical taking and killing of a poor man’s pet lamb. Perhaps we would like to judge David for this outburst, however, is this not what we all tend to do? Instead of confessing and repenting of our own sins, we often project our guilt onto others. We have created an entire media culture that facilitates this cursed coping mechanism. There is so much we can learn from the Lord and Nathan’s approach, but that is not the focus of this post.

Instead, from Psalm 51, I want to consider how we respond when conviction for our sins comes upon us.

“You are that man!” Oh no!

How do we respond when we become aware of our failure to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and have failed to love our neighbors as ourselves? Will we deny doing anything wrong and embrace a lie, or will we contritely admit the truth and run to our merciful God, our Heavenly Father who loves us?

As the narrative reveals, King David was far from perfect, and he did some horrific things.[1] Yet when he realized that he had sinned, he repented wholeheartedly... with no denials, no excuses, no minimization, and no blaming. He didn't go all "Saul" on the corrective message or the messenger. How do we respond when the Holy Spirit convicts us that we have sinned? Psalm 51 is a great primer on how to confess and repent.

How do we handle guilt over our actions, inactions, attitudes, and thoughts? Do we cover it up or switch to a fight or flight reaction? Or do we realize that God knows the deep truth about us and that the best response is to confess? The reality of our failures is that there will come a time when they can be denied no longer. It is far better to be a quick confessor!

Confession (v. 3-4)

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When we confess, we are saying, “Yep, I did it (i.e., ‘I know my transgressions…’v.3) and you are completely right to judge me” (v.4). David’s conscience had been activated by conviction and now he couldn’t unsee his sin. Further, he recognizes that all sin ultimately was against the Lord. He was not denying that he hurt people but recognizing that the Lord was the ultimate recipient of that hurt… not just the poor man whose lamb was taken but the one who is the Lamb of God as seen in type through the OT sacrificial system.

In verses 5-6, David owned up to his systemic fallenness. Allow me to paraphrase, “I have a sinful nature; it seems that even as an infant I was not sinless, yet you teach me wisdom in my heart/inward being (v.5-6). He knew that God doesn’t wait for perfection before he gets involved in our lives but walks with us and teaches us along the way… if we have ears to hear.

David knew that he had sinned against the heart of God and taken from others that which he could not give back. Yet, because he valued his walk with God he came to God in this prayer of faith and deep humility and asked some honest requests.

Petition: Requests he asked of God…

Photo by Jack Sharp on Unsplash

Have mercy on me (v.1) and not just any run-of-the-mill mercy but mercy that is “according to your steadfast love.” Mercy is not getting the dreadful thing that you deserve. David knew he deserved death and pleaded for that mercy sourced in and suited for God’s steadfast love (Heb. hesed). And just as that hesed abounds in God’s nature, so David asked for abundant mercy so that his second round of requests might be accomplished. 

     Blot out my transgressions (v.1d,9)

         Wash me thoroughly (v. 2, 7)

               Purge and cleanse me (v.7)

These three requests are all in one accord, asking for the same thing. David wanted to be clean inside and out. While used in parallel, we might see subtle variations on a theme. He wanted to be set free from the guilt of what he had done, washed from all the lingering external residue, and even deep-cleaned on the inside cutting off sin at its root, a prideful heart.

All he experienced until the Lord forgave and restored him was the opposite of joy, but in hope, he prayed, “Let me hear joy and gladness” (for I am consumed with sorrow and regret). David knew something about a right relationship with God—it is the source of joy. As people who have received forgiveness through Jesus Christ, we too should lean into the joy and gladness of the Holy Spirit.

Finally, David humbly asked for healing as he confessed his brokenness (v.8) As a shepherd, David knew that sometimes a shepherd must break the leg of a wandering sheep of its own good. During the recovery time, they are always in the presence of the shepherd and learn that life is better there than wandering among wolves and lions.

Then David wrote/prayed the well-known words that many of us have fervently sung as well as prayed down through the centuries,

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
    and renew a right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from your presence,
    and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
    and uphold me with a willing spirit. (v.10-12)

These three short verses encapsulate the cries of the hearts of all who not only know and mourn their sins but who also know the God who is “slow to anger and abounding in loving-kindness.” What might seem at first to be six densely packed requests are three pairings of parallel requests.

In the first pairing, David asked God to create and renew a clean heart/right spirit “within me” where he only knew the stain of his sins and the wrong thinking and sorrow they produced. In the third pairing, we see that the restoration of the joy of salvation (echoing v. 8) is tied to a willing spirit that upholds us in difficulty.

While I can personally relate to David repeatedly asking for cleansing, and renewed joy, it is the relational request of the middle pairing (v.11) that captures my heart this week.

Cast me not away from your presence,
    and take not your Holy Spirit from me. (v.11)

I propose that neither of the other pairings are possible without the Lord granting this request. Even if we were cleansed, we could not hope to remain so if God removed his presence from us. Not only that but what enduring joy could we have apart from the Spirit? This might not seem important to us because we often undervalue the Holy Spirit. However, David knew what happened to his predecessor—Saul—when because of his stubborn heart and refusal to confess his sin, God had removed his Spirit from him (1 Sam. 16:14). David had witnessed Saul’s torment, jealousy, and fits of homicidal madness all too often. He would not have wanted to be like Saul, and I am sure that such memories added to the intensity of his plea. Thankfully, the Lord doesn’t merely dole out heavenly currency to meet our needs, he gives us his very self! The presence of the Lord is life (1 John 5:11-12).

This psalm is a blessing for those who know they have sinned and long to be right with God. It not only gives us the language to bare our soul before the Lord, but it is also a prayer that God answered for David (the psalmist) and will answer for us today through Jesus Christ! But having been forgiven, will we teach others God's ways, or will we return to our own?

Declaration

Right after this prayer of petition, there is a pledge of faithful living from then on. David declared what he would do upon being cleansed, kept close, and restored to the joy of salvation. He would be an example for others to follow. Something he could not be without the inclusion of both his failures and his repentant faithfulness. He planned to sing aloud and declare God’s praise. Recently on a church worship and prayer night, we sang Cody Carnes’ song Bless God, which includes these lyrics,

Come on and bring your offering
Sing if you've known His grace
Come on and lift up your holy hands
He's worthy of all our praise.

Bless God in the sanctuary
Bless God in the fields of plenty
Bless God in the darkest valley
Every chance I get
I bless Your name.

This is exactly what David said he would do upon experiencing such desperately needed grace. The Lord doesn’t long to smell more burning meat on the sacrificial altar’s grill. He desires a different type of sacrifice—that of “a broken and contrite heart” (v.17).

What is the sign of such a sacrificial heart? It is confession. Instead of walking the path of rationalization, minimization, and deflection, a contrite heart admits its moments of weakness, acts of disobedience, and attitudes of independence and rebellion.

A dozen years ago I commented on this psalm, “In this great psalm of repentance, David acknowledged the kind of sacrifice God accepts...a broken and contrite heart. Such hearts like his are in short supply these days having lost their shelf space to more popular and less helpful indulgences like denial, pride, excuses, pride, technical confession without remorse, and did I mention pride?”

The Holy Spirit Draws Us Back to Jesus

If we have not grown hard of heart and calloused of conscience when we become aware of our sin, our guilty hearts often hear two voices speak—one condemns and the other convicts. We do well to learn the difference.

Condemnation is the voice of the accuser speaking to our fears and shame warning us to get as far away from the angry, judgmental, punitive God as we can, for we no longer deserve his love, and he doesn’t want anything to do with us. Remember that the accuser—Satan—is the father of lies.

The other voice is that of conviction. Conviction is the voice of the Holy Spirit reminding us that we can’t save ourselves and that we need to get to Jesus Christ, the lover of our soul, as quickly as we can, for Jesus is our light, life, and everlasting hope! John tells it straight,

Come unto me...

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:8-9 ESV)

If we are sorry for our sin, and don’t merely turn away from a harmful attitude or behavior but
return to our merciful Lord Jesus we should have no fear that the Holy Spirit will be taken from us.

Remember that God is greater than our hearts (1 John 3:20), so today, instead of self-condemnation, take time to thank the Lord for the forgiveness and cleansing he has given to us! David did.

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[1] [Note: the regular inclusion of the faults and sins of “heroic” biblical characters is solid evidence that the Bible is not propaganda but a true historical narrative.]

Psalm 44 The Cry of the Remnant

Photo: Greg K Dueker

Psalm 44 is almost like a microcosm of the entire book of Psalms. It is filled with statements of praise and remembrance, personal testimony, and national salvation history, as well as bitter lament and honesty, giving voice to the painful questions in the people's hearts. In that sense, it is highly relatable for many readers down through history who have known both the blessing of victory and the disgrace of adverse circumstances.

If we know the history of Israel in the Old Testament, we know that the only time that Israel’s armies were defeated in battle was when there was "sin in the camp”. God’s covenant with Israel was clear that if their hearts turned away to follow other gods then discipline would come, at the hands of other nations, to drive them back to the Lord their Deliverer. We see this pattern played out over and over. Eventually, God kept his promise to justly remove them from the land as a consequence of their constant wickedness as a nation.

But what about the faithful individuals who trusted the Lord despite the pressures of an ungodly culture? How did the prophets feel as they had to call an unresponsive nation to repentance? Overwhelmed, exhausted, discouraged, and even confused. In 1 Kings 19, Elijah fled the very real death threats against him from Queen Jezebel and lamented to God that he was the last servant of the Lord in the Northern Kingdom of Israel (19:10,14), but the Lord corrected Elijah’s emotional math. He was not alone,

“Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal…” (19:18).

How encouraging that must have been for Elijah to hear. Many of those 7000 certainly would have been encouraged by the ministry of Elijah.

Psalm 44 powerfully captures the lament of the faithful remnant during a time of great suffering. As such, it is instructive for us when our circumstances don’t seem to line up with our understanding and expectations of the Lord’s steadfast love.

“A Nation Under God’s Delight”

Photo by Joanne Francis
on Unsplash

The first two stanzas of Psalm 44 form what I call the “Nation Under God’s Delight” section that recounts how God had first established Israel in the land in the distant past and also how God had shown his goodness to the psalmist himself. This section contains two parts, stories they had heard about and stories they had lived themselves.

Back in the Day—Stories They Had Heard (v. 1-3)

O God, we have heard with our ears,
     our fathers have told us,
what deeds you performed in their days,
     in the days of old:
you with your own hand drove out the nations,
       but them you planted;
  you afflicted the peoples,
       but them you set free;
for not by their own sword did they win the land,
    nor did their own arm save them,
but your right hand and your arm,
             and the light of your face,
    for you delighted in them.

This first stanza of the psalm warmly recalls the faith-building stories they had heard of how the Lord worked in previous generations to drive out the Canaanites and plant Israel in the land, as a gracious act of God’s delight for his people.

The psalmist humbly makes a point of giving all the credit to God and not keeping any for Israel. As I read this, I have to ask, how much credit are we giving to God today and how much are we keeping for ourselves? In an election cycle, all politicians take as much credit as they can and deny responsibility for anything negative. However, if we take credit for the good, we also need to take responsibility for the bad.

What is profound here is that he writes, "we heard with our ears, our fathers have told us, what deeds you performed in their days". The stories passed down were not the fathers bragging about their successes or regaling them with how great things were, instead their stories were focused on what God had done on their behalf. So, how are we doing with telling our own "God stories?” Is God the hero of the stories told, or are we? I confess that too often it is the latter.

We Experienced Your Deliverance—Stories They Had Lived (v. 4-8)

Photo by Keith Luke on Unsplash

The psalmist had not only heard stories of God’s works of deliverance in previous generations, he has experienced such moves of God himself. He had lived such stories and witnessed the God-wrought victories in his own lifetime and boldly testifies about them. He continues to recognize that anything which Israel had accomplished was through the work of the Lord himself. It is believed that this would have been the testimony of the godly king,

For not in my bow do I trust,
    nor can my sword save me. (v.6)

As a result, their testimonies of the victory that they had received from the Lord amounted to a national bragging on the Lord, as verse 8 makes clear,

“In God we have boasted continually,
and we will give thanks to your name forever.”

When I read this stanza, I ask, how can we boast more fully in God our King and Savior today? Rehearsing the power and presence of God in the past will help us trust him more amid our present situations. This was how the psalmist prepared his heart to process his current shame.

As I have noted previously, the psalmist, the king, and the people had a rich heritage of powerful deliverances at the hand of God on behalf of their ancestors, and a testimony that had continued in this vein of victory and triumph of trust.

But then things changed…

Their “2020” Arrived

Photo by Edwin Hooper on Unsplash

The rest of the psalm is an aching lament expressing the feeling that God had abandoned them. Such feelings are a fairly normal reaction for us when things go from good to bad. However, it is usually not an accurate assessment of the situation. Just as the Israel of Psalm 44 had become a “byword” so too has the year 2020. In the future, we will likely use 2020 as a byword for “a really messed-up time.”

So far, in 2020, we have seen a global pandemic and the resulting economic and educational downturns associated with the mandated shutdowns. We have seen people awakened to stand together and peacefully protest racial injustice. We have seen anarchists prone to riot sacrificing the livelihoods of others on the altar of their demands. Our region in the Pacific NW has also been swept with wind-driven wildfires and blanketed in smoke so thick it blots out the sun. Yet as bad as it seems here there are many places where the social and personal pain is far greater. I have heard intense reports from many countries including Italy, India, Iran, and Indonesia.

In Psalm 44, the psalmist’s context had experienced a complete reversal from good to terrible! Did this mean that God had left, or that his love had failed? This was an honest question from a burdened heart. That’s how they felt… and sometimes we might feel the same way. The lament section of the psalm contains three stanzas which we will examine in turn.

“But It Doesn’t Seem Like You Delight in Us” (v. 9-16)

Photo by Joanne Francis on Unsplash

What do we do when everything that seemed to be going great isn’t anymore? Have we grown so used to prosperity and comfort that we expect it or that we feel entitled to it?

Ancient Israel saw a more direct and immediate correlation between outward circumstances and the condition of the person’s/nation’s heart and actions before God. However, this is often not the case. Sometimes circumstances don’t line up and are not a result of any kind of personal sin. That’s why we have the book of Job in the Bible! Speaking of Job, this psalm is reminiscent of both the story and lament of Job who also didn’t understand why it felt like God was punishing him though he was innocent.

What do we do to process our internal dissonance in this 2020 time?

The psalmist presents a poetic list of how God had not shown them the same level of blessing the “the fathers” had received. In a list of six, “you have” statements, the full scope of their reversal is seen. It concludes this way,

You have made us a byword among the nations,
     a laughingstock among the peoples.
All day long my disgrace is before me,
    and shame has covered my face
  at the sound of the taunter and reviler,
    at the sight of the enemy and the avenger. (v.14-16)

Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona 
on Unsplash

Instead of being delivered and given land, they have lost everything. They had been defeated, despoiled, deported, devalued, despised, derided, and daily disgraced. To say the least, there is a great deal of spiritual/emotional dissonance being expressed in this psalm.

It might seem pretty bold to pin all this on the Lord as though accusing him of dereliction of duty, but the psalms give us both the permission and vocabulary, to be honest with God. Among other things, lament psalms process our feelings of disappointment, loss, and shame through the character of God. That is what we see here. There is a tone of deep grief over intense loss and intense frustration over the continued indignities that they were suffering.

“Our Heart has not Turned Back” (v. 17-22)

The community of the faithful then lists several “we have not” statements defending their innocence in answer to the previous stanza’s “you have” indictments of God’s care and describing an apparently withdrawn divine blessing. Where was God in all this?

While it may be true that the psalmist was faithful, and accurately represented the position of other faithful people, over the years I have observed that we tend to overestimate our faithfulness while underestimating God’s present work on our behalf.

If we trust in our own efforts, it should come as no surprise that we can't see God working on our behalf. Just saying!

At the same time, we need to recognize this is the cry of the remnant throughout history, for the godly will be opposed. Their lament in verse 22...

Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long;
    we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.

is quoted centuries later by the Apostle Paul in Romans 8 in an extended discussion of how nothing can separate us from “the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord”, certainly not “tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword.” (See Romans 8:18-36)

In fact, it is this trust in the steadfast love of God that anchored the psalmist and the remnant community as they now ask the questions they can no longer refrain from asking.

Please Wake Up and Help! (v. 23-26)

Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord?
    Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever!
Why do you hide your face?
    Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?
For our soul is bowed down to the dust;
    our belly clings to the ground.
Rise up; come to our help!
    Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love! 

They express their internal dissonance by asking three “why?” questions in rapid-fire style before concluding in prayer based on the faithful love of God that is working even when we can’t see it. We may never know the why behind what we face. But we can know the one who is with us in the midst, the one who promises that he will not leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5).

This psalm started by affirming trust in the Lord and God's faithfulness in the past. Then it expressed their confusion and even anger at their currently being defeated...but they processed their emotions and thoughts through trust in God. Finally, the psalm ends with the prayer of v. 26 which is still our prayer today!

Rise up; come to our help!
    Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love!

 His steadfast love is our only hope! And an amazing hope it is!

 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. (Rom. 8:18)