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)

Faith's steps

When I re-read Philippians 2:12-13, an unlikely setting comes to mind: the girl’s locker room of my town’s original junior high school. There, about forty years ago as a fresh-from-college newspaper reporter, I joined a young radio reporter in interviewing entertainer Pat Boone—yes, he of the white shoes fame. The celebrity had been invited as speaker for an all-city Easter worship service. But just before he went on stage in the football field adjacent to the junior high, these novice reporters had  a few minutes with him. I think the radio’s reporter asked the question: “What is your favorite Bible verse?” Quickly, Boone quoted these two verses of Philippians 2:
Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
Here I was, with fear and trembling as a green-behind-the-ears reporter, facing a celebrity musician. Boone’s reply reminded me that no matter our station in life, we stand in humility beneath the Cross..  Our purpose is not to pile up accolades but to live in obedience to Christ.  We’re not to work for our salvation (it’s already been secured through Christ’s death on the cross) but to work out, in steps of obedience that change our behavior to Christlikeness.

These stairs, photographed at a community park, remind me of how the Christian walk is a progression of steps upward as God works in our lives, giving us “the desire to obey Him and the power to do what pleases him” (Philippians 2:13 NLT).  Similarly, Peter added in his second letter, “His [God’s] divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness”   (1 Peter 1:3).

Think of “going higher” with God as via Peter’s words on spiritual growth:

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 1:5-8).

This doesn’t say that you conquer the step of “goodness” and then the step of “knowledge,” and so on.  Rather, in each step of our walk with Christ, all these attributes of godliness should increase.  If they don’t, here’s Peter’s warning:

But anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins. Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure (v.9).

Peter’s last phase (“be all the more eager”) seems to echo Paul’s (“work out...with fear and trembling”). Salvation isn’t about plopping down on the first step of “knowing God” through a “spiritual decision,” and leaving it at that. Instead, it’s taking spiritual growth one step at a time, with “fear and trembling,” for we serve a holy God. But we do this with eagerness because of all that He has done for us!