HANDING IT OVER (Psalm 31)

This old abandoned service station in an Eastern Washington town seemed

to illustrate to me the feelings expressed in Psalm 31: down and unwanted.

An ongoing series on the 48 psalms listed as “recommended reading” for "down times" by counselor David Seamands (author of Healing for Damaged Emotions).

“Favorable outcomes…solution-based…positive results.”  Such are the catchwords of our generation. We want things that take away the pain—if not instantly, then as fast as possible.  Psalm 31 runs straight into those ideas with the truth that life isn’t always easy and sometimes it really hurts and confuses. David gets right to the point with something I’ve probably prayed in one way or the other:

In you, O LORD, I have taken refuge; let me never be put to shame, deliver me in your righteousness.

The word “shame” reappears in verse 17:

Let me not be put to shame, O LORD, for I have cried out to you.

Our English word “shame” comes from the Hebrew bosh, meaning to become pale.  Good description, for it seems the blood and courage drain away when someone “shames us.” I felt similarly “depleted” when I ran into people who “shamed” me for innocent and upright actions and words.  They were so emotionally disheveled that their perceptions of people and life were distorted.

Bingo!  Did you read Saul into that (“emotionally disheveled,” “perceptions distorted”)? Welcome to history repeating itself in the ordinary threads of life.

A MENTAL/PHYSICAL MESS

So here, in Psalm 31, is a persecuted believer feeling it in his bones.  Verses 9-13 give a glimpse into his medical chart. Lots of tears, anguish, groaning, weakness, forgotten, like broken pottery, pressured by slander and other attacks. Depression manifests itself in such ways, like a creeping darkness. But the portion of Psalm 31 that lifts me most is verse 5:

Into your hands I commit my spirit; redeem me, O LORD, the God of truth.

Does it sound familiar? Jesus, on the cross: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”  When he had said this, he breathed his last. (Luke 23:46)

Stephen, as stones flew, killing him: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”(Acts 7:59)

Making the world “right” is not my responsibility. I’m to trust and obey.  Sometimes that’s really hard because our world’s mantras are “favorable outcomes…solution-based…positive results.”

Psalm 31 records a journey, from hurt and dismay to trust.  Because David was frank enough to recall his pain, we benefit these thousands of years later in our own spiritual battles.

But I trust in you, O LORD; I say, “You are my God.”My times are in your hands; deliver me from my enemies." (vv. 14-15)

Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the LORD. (v. 24)