The Salve Psalms

Autumn’s dropping leaves are reminders that life includes times of loss that can leave us bewildered. I know at times I identified with the psalmist who cried out, “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me?” (42:5, 11; 43:5). Psalm 42’s spiritual metaphor of a deer desperate for water made sense for me, too: “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God” (42:2).  

I was drawn to these psalms when I experienced major life disruptions and turmoil with emotional and physical consequences. A man I loved rejected me. Several times I faced adjustments in moving far away from home. My parents’ months-apart deaths and resulting estate tasks overwhelmed me. Other times of despair came with a serious car wreck, care-giving ailing in-laws, and coping with the “empty nest.”

But recently, as I reflected on both psalms (which are linked in original Hebrew manuscripts), I found I’d missed how that despondent query ended with the salve of a hopeful “yet”: “Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.”        

The psalmist reveals several possible reasons for this downheartedness. One is spiritual opposition. Non-believers scoff, “Where is your God?” (42:3, also implied in 43:1-2). He misses familiar ways of worshipping with others (42:4). Scholars think he’s homesick—possibly displaced from Jerusalem to someplace near Mt. Hermon and the headwaters of the Jordan (42:6, 7). Yet even there he realizes that the place’s natural beauty (“deep calls to deep,” 42:7)) is nature’s music drawing him to the omnipresent God. I recalled how getting out to a place of beauty refreshed me when I felt down.

But the greater salve is embedded in the psalms’ names of God. He is “the living God” (42:2), true and able. He is the personal “my God” (42:5, 11: 43:4), He is powerful covenant God known as “the LORD” (v. 8). This name (rendered in small capitals in English Bible translations) is so holy to Jews that they will not speak or write it. We know it as YHWH or “Jehovah.” The psalmist also voices submission to “God of my life” (42:8). He prays to the solid, safe “God my rock” (42:9) and “God, my stronghold” (43:2). From his despair, he appeals to “God, my joy and my delight” (43:4). 

Even before studying this psalm, I had begun a practice of meditating on the names and attributes of God.  When problems kept me awake at night, I started going through the alphabet, recalling the names of God that gave me courage and encouragement.  I considered Him as the “Almighty One,” my Burden-bearer, my Compassionate Comforter—and on and on. By “Z,” peace and sleep would usually come. The practice reminded me that God, in the fullness of His deity, is far greater than any problem I might face.

The last part of the psalms’ thrice-repeated refrain also reminded me of God’s care in difficult experiences: “Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” The King James version renders that last part, “the health of my countenance, and my God.” The idea is that the God who lifts our saddened faces to show us His profound love is indeed the One who wants to save us from this despondency. He may use medical professionals to aid us out to health.

For me, the refrain’s key word is “hope.”  The apostle Paul reminded us that “we rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:2). He emphasized that life’s tribulations can lead us, in God’s plan, to hope that never disappoints (5:5).

Psalms 42 and 43 are no longer the “despondency” psalms for me.  Yes, they describe someone who’s downhearted.  But the psalms’ refrains don’t leave me stuck on “downcast.”  They remind me that, in life’s spiritual autumns and winters, to hang on to hope. They assure me that it’s okay to thirst for God and seek a deeper relationship with Him. When I admit my need, He will lead me to His waters of spiritual refreshment. Thus renewed, I will again praise Him, my Savior and my God.

When life's gloomy

Talk about a gloomy day!  Though sunny outside, a storm system had moved inside. Negative thoughts splattered as I went about my chores. This photo is the best way I can illustrate it! I was dealing with some gray emotional clouds that rose up after a morning prayer time. For years I’d prayed for certain people who had a hard time “doing life.” Over and over I’d prayed that these people would drop negative habits, find joy in the Lord, sense purpose for life, acquire quality friends, or discover God’s will. But it seemed nothing was changing for the good. I was frustrated, even worried, about their futures. As my concern grew over the next hours, it was like a shroud over my day. Surely God was noticing how much I cared for these people!  

His answer came in an Email. A writer-friend, Kathy Collard Miller, had a book coming out. Would I be willing to review it? Her request turned out to be “apples of gold in settings of silver.”  No, not that old, famed book of quotes and aphorisms, but golden counsel I needed that week. Kathy is a seasoned author (nearly 50 books) and speaker (U.S. and overseas).

Timely for my “clouded perspective,” this new book is on “worry.” Titled Partly Cloudy with Scattered Worries, it teaches how it’s possible to worry less by trusting God more. Her insights helped me close up my gloom umbrella and realign some spiritual perspectives. Chapter 8, for example, tackles how worrying is really an attempt to control others. She highlights three false attitudes behind that premise.

False idea #1: “Worry communicates love,” as in “I was SO worried about you.” Truth: Worry communicates distrust. Worrying is a control device that can drive a wedge between people. “Prayer is powerful, worry is powerless,” she writes. “Prayer builds the relationship, worry destroys the relationship.”

False idea #2: “Worry changes other people.”  Truth: Worry doesn’t change others. Worry causes us to fall into a rut of thinking we’re responsible for another’s happiness. Kathy recalled worrying about her daughter’s unhappy “host family” situation during a college semester overseas. But her daughter emerged from that troubled semester with a healthy appreciation for her real family. Instead of worrying, we need to let God use a difficult situation in someone’s life. 

 

False idea #3. “Worry controls other people.” Truth:  It’s not our role to “rescue” people. She shared the story of an elderly woman who, worried about a troubled grandson, paid his rent and food for three years so he wouldn’t be homeless. By “worrying” through her financial support, she was actually interfering with God’s discipline in the young man’s life. Citing Proverbs 19:19, Kathy remarked, “Neither worrying nor rescuing does any good. It only brings destruction….He (or she) needs to be needy so that he/she will need God.” 

In other situations where people struggle (like those on my gloomy-day prayer list), Kathy reminds us that their failures are not a reflection on us. Instead, we’re to pray and set appropriate boundaries. There’s lots more, of course, to the book. Should I stop praying for spiritually needy people? Absolutely not! The Bible commands intercession. Prayer does change things, but not in the way nor in the time we think. God didn’t create robots. He created people with free will (make that: strong wills). But He still loves us more than we can imagine. He even loved me enough to allow me to experience a gloomy day. Then He gently pulled me out of it through a writer-friend’s timely counsel.

When you wait, and wait, on God

Have you prayed for years, even decades, regarding something and see no hope of an answer? Welcome to God’s Pray-Waiting Club. Sometimes I sing a duet with King David, who pined, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?  How long will you hide your face from me?”  (Psalm 13:1).

 

Those who think of God as “somewhere out there looking down on us” are probably most discouraged by unanswered prayer. They imagine God is too busy processing millions of prayers to pay much detailed attention to them. But such a view demeans the greatness of God. Still, when no answer seems to come to our prayers, we may feel abandoned or forgotten. That’s when we need scriptural reminders that God always hears our prayers and always responds.  But He will not be manipulated. His answer will come in His way, in His time, and to fulfill His purpose. And sometimes that’s “no,” for some of these reasons:

*In response to disobedience and dishonor. Moses truly wanted to step into the Promised Land. Then he lost his temper in a way that dishonored God. When the people rose up against Moses because there was no water, God had told him to “speak” to a certain rock, and it would provide water.  Instead, he stormed,  “Listen you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” (Numbers 20:10).  The pronoun “we” put Moses on equal footing with God. Then, instead of speaking, he whammed the rock with his staff.  God took that seriously and right then set the punishment: Moses wouldn’t enter the land.  Moses’ heart-breaking disappointment shows how  God loves us but also has laid out how to relate to a holy God. Any sin--public or private, done or neglected to be done--is an affront to His holiness.

*To fulfill God’s higher plan. Jesus knew going through crucifixion would be excruciating. Worse, He’d suffocate under the dark weight of the world’s sin.  His Father would turn His face away. “My Father,” He pleaded that last night in Gethsemane, “if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.”  But He knew the Father’s will was to go through it: “Yet not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 25:39). God may leave us in a difficult situation because He sees the end result. That challenging job, difficult roommate,  marital conflict, illness or disability may be the tool He uses to develop godly character that pushes through.

*To help us experience God’s sufficiency.  Paul felt he’d suffered enough. Missionary life had meant imprisonment, beatings, shipwrecks, travel dangers, criminal harm, sleep deprivation, hunger, ragged clothing, and edge-of-death trauma (see 2 Corinthians 11). He also carried a huge emotional pastor’s burden. Whatever the source—an old injury?—he continued to suffer a “thorn in the flesh” that simply wouldn’t go away. To help him endure this, he had a special-delivery message from Christ: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:7-10). To that, Paul responded with words that still instruct us:  “That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

God’s “no” is never arbitrary. In His profound wisdom and unfailing love, He seeks only our best. That’s not necessarily our comfort, but it’s what will bring Him honor and impact our world for good. As we accept the “no” and begin to see His hand in our lives, then we’ll come full-circle to the conclusion of Psalm 13.  After hanging out all his “how-long” questions, the psalmist decides:

But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing to the LORD, for he has been good to me. (Psalm 13:6)

Mushrooms and Psalm 1

Talk about “night visitors”! As I went outside juggling a basket of wet laundry, I almost stepped on some surprise squatters. These brown umbrella disks had popped overnight through some scraggly grass where I’d overwatered. If you didn’t know, a mushroom is a fast-growing fungus that feeds off decaying matter and is common in moist places. I knew they wouldn’t last more than a few days, but went ahead and snapped them away, depositing them in the garbage.  I’d recently studied Psalm 1 and toyed with how verse 3 (about the godly man) would read if mushrooms were substituted for that tree planted by streams of water:

He is like a mushroom that pops up in moist places. He feeds on decay, and in a couple days withers away.

Obviously, the analogy doesn’t work. The psalmist made the perfect analogy to a sturdy fruit tree whose roots grow deep, producing fruit season after season. The application, of course, is sending out deep spiritual roots that will support the growing of spiritual fruit.

This is the growth process J. Oswald Sanders wrote about in The Joy of Following Jesus: “It is the responsibility of the disciple to be the best he or she can be for God.  To please Him is a most worthy aim. He wants us to realize the full purpose of our creation; He does not want us to be content with bland mediocrity” (Moody, 1994, p. 63).

Perhaps it’s because I’m so aware of media addictions that this quote burns into my heart. The “mushroom mentality” feeds on the world’s decay, widely served up enticingly with the click of a computer mouse or a TV remote. Every morning, for example, when I open up my computer’s “home page” to check the weather or start some research, I’m blindsided by what someone thinks is “news” or “trend.” The computer helps me as a writer on spiritual topics, but I could waste hours following cutesy animal videos, celebrity gossip, fashion, sports, games, or personal trivia.

Sanders hit it on the nail: “Many fail to achieve anything significant for God or man because they lack a dominating ambition.  No great task was ever achieved without the complete abandonment to it that a worthy ambition inspires.” How we use our time is a choice—for good or bad. Sanders cited the story of Thomas Scott (1747-1821), who was the low-achiever of his school.  In those days they called him the “dunce.”  Most of his teachers expected little of him.  But someone, somewhere, said something that awakened in him a master ambition.  Slowly, steadily he worked toward it. Sanders continued, “He grew to be a strong and worthy man”—so well-regarded that he succeeded John Newton (former slave trader-turned-believer, best known for “Amazing Grace”) as rector of the church at Aston Sandford.

 

He also wrote a large commentary on the whole Bible that influenced his generation and is still consulted. Scott didn’t achieve that feeding on the decay of the world.  His roots went down deep with God. His life yielded fruit. His leaves didn’t wither. What he did, prospered.

“Mushroom” choices aren’t anything new. The apostle Paul anguished over those he saw in his times, and encouraged stronger believers to help those so entrapped. But he offered a warning for the “helpers” as well: be careful. His counsel in Galatians 6:1 (at right) is a good “screen saver”!