LOOK ABOVE (Psalm 57)

Part of a continuing series on the 48 psalms that speak to getting through depression, recommended by pastor and author David Seamands (Healing for Damaged Emotions).

There’s an old humorous ditty that goes like this: “To dwell above with the saints we love, that will be glory. But to dwell below with the saints we know, well, that is a different story.” I think David would have half-laughed upon hearing that, then remarking, “I’m dwelling below with folks who aren’t exactly saints.” In reviewing our work, church, and social networks, we’d probably say the same.  With Psalm 57 comes yet another “they’re after me” complaint.  The preface says David had fled to a cave to try to elude King Saul’s “murder David” campaign.  David likened his pursuers to ravenous beasts (v. 4), and the dangers he faces to net traps and pits. That reminded me of the jungle warfare, especially during the Vietnam era.  Scary.

THE UPWARD LOOK

But Psalm 57 isn’t just a battlefield report. It’s interlaced with remarkable praise, making it a good model for looking “above” when things below are scary, troublesome, and depressing.  Twice David writes this chorus:

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth. (vv. 5, 11)

In other words, look above. I wonder if at times David crept out to the entrance of his cave and then, seeing no enemy about, dared to stand and drink in the skyscape. Perhaps he remembered the poetry of Job, who declared:

He wraps up the waters in his clouds, yet the clouds do not burst under their weight. (Job 26:8)

Or as Job’s “comforter” Elihu observed:

Who can understand how he spreads out the clouds, how he thunders from his pavilion? (36:29)

Do you know how the clouds hang poised, those wonders of him who is perfect in knowledge? (37:16)

Then God breaks into the conversation, reminding Job and his friends that He, the Creator, made the clouds as a garment for the newly-born earth.

I’m not saying that looking at the clouds is a quick and cheap way to chase depression. But God can use the skyscape to remind us of His power and authority from all time, and how the threats we face from fellow humans are not beyond His notice.

SHADOW OF SAFETY

Psalm 57 contains another powerful verse:

I take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed. (v. 1b)

“Shadow of your wings,” also a key image of Psalm 17:8, brings forth two possible scenarios.  One is of chicks being gathered to safety under the mother hen.  Jesus used this imagery when He mourned the state of spiritual affairs in Jerusalem:

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing (Luke 13:34) 

But in another interpretation, those “wings” are of the golden cherubim on each end of the sacred Ark of the Covenant, the golden chest containing the Ten Commandments and the most holy piece of furniture in the Jewish worship system. They believed that the presence of God somehow resided under the golden wings stretched out over the chest.  I’ll have to wait until Q&A time in heaven to understand what really went on there. But David, who wasn’t a priest and therefore couldn’t go behind the curtain where the chest was secluded, still considered that a special “God-place.”

Stuck in hiding in a cave, there was no way for him to even get close to that sacred place. But he could fix his heart on God and worship even there.  William Cushing, a 19^th century pastor who turned to hymn-writing after losing his voice, gave us a musical reminder of “looking above” our difficult circumstances when he wrote this hymn:

Under His wings I am safely abiding, Though the night deepens and tempests are wild;

Still I can trust Him, I know He will keep me, He has redeemed me and I am His child.

Chorus: Under His wings, under His wings, Who from His love can sever?

Under His wings my soul shall abide, Safely abide forever.

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For another very "sing-able," encouraging reminder of this psalm, find a copy of Brent Chamber's scripture-based "Be Exalted, O God," copyright 1977 by Maranatha! Music. 

Look up!

"Big Sky Country”—I understood that description of Montana when I traveled across it nearly forty years ago. Ever-changing clouds floated above the encircling horizon. The rolling scrublands of southeast Washington state provide a similar impression, and when we recently traveled through them, this cloud formation almost took my breath away. Sometimes scripture you haven’t thought about in a while just pops into your mind, and this is what came to me:

From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. (John 1:16)

The context of this verse is God’s amazing grace in sending The Light, His son Jesus, who showed us and taught us about God the Father. As I saw the clouds stacked one after another, they seemed to symbolize “one blessing after another.”  I not only have sufficient food and housing, the love of friends and family, and skills I can use to God’s glory, I have HIM. When the woes of this world drag me down, especially when I am attacked personally, I have HIM. I have the gift of salvation, His assurance of help now, and the anticipation of a glorious future in Heaven.

Recently, while finishing a sewing project, I put on a praise tape for background music. As though God knew I needed it, I heard the song “Be exalted,” based on Psalm 57:6: “Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth." I immediately thought of this photo and the “glory” of even clouds—water vapor, part of God’s exquisite creation design!—expressing His glory over the landscape.

Only two of the gospels describe Jesus’ ascension into Heaven, both just saying “he was taken up into heaven” (Mark 16:19, Luke 24:51). But when Luke gathered his research of the history of the early church, he added this detail:

 “After he [Jesus] had said this [the “great commission” to witness about Jesus] he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight” (Acts 1:9, boldface added).

But that’s not the end of the “cloud” story.  Luke’s Gospel includes Jesus’ teaching about the end of the world with all sorts of havoc. Luke quotes Jesus:

At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.  When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near (Luke 21:27-28, boldface added).

As you finish reading this, look outside.  Are there clouds to lift your thoughts heavenward?  Even if not this day, look up and take courage! He is coming again!

No clouded perspective

Are you, like me, sometimes overwhelmed by natural beauty? One such time for me came recently as I noticed a cloud back-lit by the sun. I thought of this line:
He makes the clouds His chariot.
My concordance later helped me fix its address: Psalm 104:3. In his paraphrase. Eugene Peterson offers this poetic version:
You…made a chariot out of the clouds and took off on wind-wings.
One of the “ministries”—if I might use that word—of creation may be to help us unclutter our minds. The day I noticed this remarkable cloud formation, my mind was swirling with the usual “to-do” stuff plus clouded with concern for problems facing people I care about. I looked up, and there it was: God’s reminder of His power, His brilliance, His grandeur, far, far greater than a clump of water vapor in the sky.

Blame it on having been an English major in college! But I believe that all of us, within our hearts, have that quiet longing for something pure and magnificent.  And that, of course, is the spirit of God who created us and all that surrounds us.

One of the old hymns that steps back in awe of creation is “For the Beauty of the Earth.” One day when he was about 29 years old, Folliott Pierpoint looked across the spring beauty of his home area of Bath, England. Situated on the banks of the Avon River, rimmed by an amphitheater of hills and blessed by warm springs (hence the name, Bath), the area is well-known for its beauty. But that spring day, Pierpoint, a Cambridge-educated teacher, couldn’t control himself. The sight inspired the hymn that begins:

For the beauty of the earth; For the beauty of the skies;
For the love which from our birth/Over and around us lies:
Christ our God, to Thee we raise/This our sacrifice of praise.
Originally eight stanzas, it was used in the Anglican church for communion services. Coming over the Atlantic, it was often used for Thanksgiving, an American holiday.

It’s an ironic truth that the more we have, the less thankful we tend to be. This hymn reminds us to just stop and look around at what God has entrusted to us in His amazing creation.

There’s one more thing: that light behind the clouds took me to one more event.  Christ left in a cloud (Acts 1:10)—and I wonder, did it gleam with the glory He once came from?  He will come again in a cloud, “with great power and great glory” (Luke 21:27).

Clouds got your attention?  Use that moment to praise God for His creative beauty and eternal plan!

Chase away the clouds

A devotional series inspired by sights in Kauai
Storms hang over even paradise. Our four-day visit to beautiful Kauai in the Hawaiian islands came at the end of a series of tropical storms, treating us to gray skies, rain, and mud. One morning, my husband had to take off his shoes and wade through several inches of standing water to reach our rental car in the hotel parking lot.  These clouds lingered through the day.  As we explored nearby sights, I could have dwelled on the gray clouds. Instead, I marveled at the lush green vegetation that the clouds sustained. Back home in parched eastern Washington state, just months earlier, a scary summer of wildfires included one that torched a neighborhood just a mile away from ours.

The Kauai sky that day reminded me of the “Lit’l Abner comic strip,” which ran in newspapers across the nation during 1934-1977.  One of the minor characters, named “Joe Btfspik” (the comic artist “pronounced” it like a rude sound), wandered the story line with a perpetual rain cloud over his head.  The world’s worst jinx, everywhere he went, something bad happened.  It was an amusing caricature, but, sadly, I know people who live in a constant “cloud” of negatives. God stretches me in trying to help them look for the sun that’s trying to break through.  Some of their “weather reports” go like this:

 “The sun will never shine on me like it does others.” This “poor-me” outlook imagines that people reject them because they have some terrible flaw. The truth is that we’re all imperfect, but we’re people in progress as we draw nearer to the radiance of Christ, whom Malachi 4:2 called by the prophetic label, “the sun of righteousness.” One source of this distortion is popular culture, which uses media savvy as a measure of personal worth. Interestingly, a recent study by the University of Houston found a link between depression and Facebook-“lurking.” If virtual comparisons foster “nobody appreciates me” reactions, it’s time to quit the social media.

 “That thunderhead might produce a terrible storm that destroys my home!” Fear and exaggeration are not of God. Caution is. Near Kauai’s coastal areas, we noticed huge sirens ready to warn people of coming tsunamis.  But gloomy people always think the worst, revealing their fears that God won’t help them if it does happen. One published counselor suggested that such people may be reading about, listening to, or watching the news too much. All these media sources tend to emphasize the worst of any disaster. Reporters on live media (radio, TV) have a practiced, intense tone in their voices, adding to the sense of urgency. The counselor suggested: quit your news intake for a while until you can get your what-if’s under control.

“My life is just a big fog bank.  I’m hopeless and stuck.” Where I live, we can expect gray, foggy, frozen days in January and February.  It can be quite depressing unless we choose to find spots of cheer. Some simple things I do: wear colorful clothes, open the curtains, eat healthy, and connect with other people. Bringing order to the physical clutter where I live also helps.  But emotionally fog-bound people aren’t proactive in simple lifestyle things. They’re paralyzed by “I can’ts,” instead of asking God to help them overcome excuses. They’re so down on themselves that they may interpret a harried store clerk’s reaction as a snub on them.  Too much emotional analysis can lead to behavioral paralysis. Their “fog” may be a clue to a chemical imbalance in their bodies that needs medical treatment. But there’s also a spiritual aspect. David had this “future” perspective for his “fog” times, a phrase repeated several times in Psalms 42 and 43: “Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God!”

Hopeless, fictional rain-cloud Joe Btfspik didn’t enjoy what believers have for life’s storms: a God who promised: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you” (Isaiah 43:2, emphasis added). By the way, we did enjoy some blue skies before flying home across the ocean. As an old Gospel song puts it, “Sunshine after the rain.”