Bible Reading Challenge Blog

Here we find a psalm that speaks to a time and a place that could be decidedly different than the kingdom that David commanded, or his son Solomon or his predecessor Saul.  The psalmist speaks of remembering hearing from the ancestors when God used to work mighty deeds and that God would lead the troops into battle.  The assumption is that if he is walking down memory lane, with memories that are not his, then God is no longer working in the way that some have recalled.  This Psalm might be better suited for when Israel went into captivity, not when it was one of the more powerful nations on the earth as it was during David’s reign.

I know I have heard many say that God simply does not work in the miraculous ways that he used to.  Once the New Testament was written then a new age started which does not manifest God’s power in any of the same ways that God used to manifest himself.  As the psalmist may have been referring to the days of the judges, so someone like Gideon who with a handful of men overtook the Midianites or before that Joshua who fought the battle of Jericho, God doesn’t work that way anymore, could be the interpretation of this psalm.  Some have taken it to today where we hear just as Jesus walked the earth and healed and changed water to wine, and just as the Holy Spirit descended powerfully and visibly, that just doesn’t happen anymore.

Well, I respectfully disagree.  I have seen people healed with my own eyes.  I have seen miracles take place that were much more than coincidences.  I have heard the voice of God lead and direct me in the past and I expect to hear Him again in the future.  God does still work miracles.  Starting at vs.9 we see the psalmist react to a reality that many of us experience.  We need God to work a miracle but we simply do not see Him at work in this day and age.  We focus upon the effect that this has on our life and we go so far as to say, as the psalmist does, that we have done no wrong, see vs.17-18.  The blame for the author, and in many instances the blame that we cast as well, lies squarely on God.

Again, I respectfully disagree.  God does not ever abandon us.  We do feel abandoned at times, but they are the times that we have drawn ourselves away from God.  Or, and this happens as well, we may be in a very intense relationship with God and yet we feel his absence.  That feeling of absence normally comes about because we do not hear God’s answer to our prayer which may be no.  If we don’t get the answer that we want then at times we feel as if God has abandoned us or is not listening.  Read this psalm and be reminded that it is human for us to cast blame of our problems on God, but it is not helpful.  God continuously and without fail shows his steadfast love.

The psalmist asks God to send out His light and His truth so that they might lead him.  I think most of us feel a lot more comfortable just asking for the light of God to lead us, and maybe a little less comfortable asking for the truth of God to lead us.  But if we take that stance then we are mistaken.  We have forgotten the Scripture that states that the light of God will reveal all those things which are hidden and bring them into plain view (Luke 8:17, Luke 12:2, I Corinthians 4:5, Ephesians 5:13).  We most definitely need to understand that our lives really are not our lives.  There is nothing which is hidden which will remain hidden.  What would you do if you knew you could get away with it forever with no one knowing?  Be careful.  Answer honestly.  Think of the people you would hurt if you did those things.  But then recognize that we should obey God’s law not because we might get caught, motivation of fear, but rather because we simply do not want to do them because we have no desire for them and we understand whom we will hurt if we do them, motivation of love.

We need to allow the truth of God to lead us.  It is a truth that will set us free and a truth that will allow us to recognize that our hope is in God.  The psalmist asks first that God would vindicate him.  That means that God would be on his side and against his enemies.  I’m sorry, but God does not take sides.  God does not want our country to win against any other country.   God does not want us as Christians to have the upper hand against any other religion.  God does not want us as individuals to be over any other people.  God simply wants our obedience and then whatever may come we will be able to handle.  That is the way that God is.  I love God for that.  I’m not sure I would want to serve a God who loves me more than anyone else.  The same goes for our parents, right?  We don’t want our parents to love us more than others.  We just want them to love us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5pZkLWZv-E

The song is a classic one, but it in no way matches the psalm from which it was taken.  The Psalm really is more of a pep talk to the author who needs to remind himself that God is his hope and his shield.  He continues to bring up things that aren’t really going his way and then reminds himself that you know what, if I don’t hope in the Lord, then all is lost.  I have to hope in the Lord.

So there are some who live in realities where in their families or at their work they are the only ones who want to walk with the Lord.  Those who surround them have no interest.  There are some spouses who would love to have their husbands attend church with them, or some parents who would love to have their grown children attend church with them, but at a certain point we have to realize that at times we are not the ones to lead them to church.  Someone else will be in that position.  Our role and our responsibility is to hope that God will work on their lives.  

But until that happens, our soul can be cast down.  We worry about their salvation.  We worry about their contentment and being happy with what they have and who they are.  When our soul is cast down it is then that we have to read this psalm again and hear the psalmist, who has faced the same difficulties and the same depressed spirit, say at the end of the psalm: “Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.”  That refrain can only, at times, come from within us.  It often doesn’t come from, as vs. 3 reminds us, the people with whom we surround ourselves.  Rather, that encouragement, that reminder that God is our help and our hope, has to come from within us.  We are the only ones, at times, who can hear those words and as a deer, be led to the water and drink.  Don’t ever lose sight that God is our hope and our help, remind yourself continually of that. 

It seems like we are all over the map in this psalm.  It begins on the note that I stressed before which I consider the most important part of my ministry outside of preaching Jesus Christ, and that is the cause of the poor and the marginalized.  The psalm begins with the authors stating that God will give preference to those who look out for the poor.   This is nothing new, we have seen it before.

He then transitions to another theme which we see in a lot of psalms which is: Woe is me because I have a lot of enemies and they are all coming after me.  One difference in this psalm is the honesty of the statement in vs.10: But you, O Lord, be gracious to me, and raise me up, that I may repay them.  What a statement.  Make me healthy and strong so I can crush my enemies.  Again, some of these psalms are so honest and raw and yet at the same time antithetical to Jesus’ words and message.  Jesus said that in order to rule over all we must be a servant to all.  A psalmist perspective would be in order to rule over all you must crush all your enemies.  I don’t really see Jesus saying that.  

But we need to be comfortable with the contextual differences and be able to say that Scripturally the words of our Savior fulfill the Old Testament approach of an eye for an eye by given a new commandment.  Do you remember Jesus’ new commandment which is why celebrate Maundy Thursday?  Look up John 13:34 and you will see Jesus’ new commandment.

In the end, however, we are able to say: Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel.

This psalm is legitimately a psalm of thanksgiving through and through.  Except for maybe vs.11 where the psalmist asks God to make sure that he doesn’t withhold his grace and favor from him, and maybe even vs.12 where there is a descriptive statement on the evil that surrounds him, but everything is filled with thanksgiving.  The psalmist praises God for all those times in his life when he was in the miry pit and God drew him out.  I want to focus a bit on vs.3.

You notice that the psalmist is able to say that he has a new song because of what God has done for him.  The past is finished and gone and he has been blessed tremendously.  He wants to tell everyone what God has done for him.  This is a natural inclination for anyone who has been blessed by God.  You just don’t want to keep it to yourself.  But in the last part of this verse he states that many will see that God has done good things to him because of what he says and does, but he also says that many will fear.  

Keep this in mind.  How we act or react in our lives is not just an indication of our character, but it is also an indication of who God is in our lives.  If our lives don’t reflect the joy that we have in the Lord, then people will see that and mock God.  We do have a responsibility to ensure that our lives mirror the life of Jesus or else when we tell others about the love of God, well, it simply will not be believed.  Why should anyone believe us that God is good when we treat others in a way that no one should ever be treated?  Why should anyone want to hear the good news of Jesus Christ if we, the ones who follow him, ultimately turn our back on the world?  In the paraphrased words of Gandhi: I love Jesus, it is just Christians that I can’t stand.

In what I do I experience quite often the sudden, unexpected twists and turns of life in the lives of others.  There are those who suffer heart-attacks before they turn 40.  There are those who are looking forward to retirement and then are told that they have inoperable cancer.  There are those who discover they are pregnant long after the family had been planned and set.  We do not know what one day will hold, nor the other.  When you get to vs.4 you hear words that are very familiar: “Lord, let me know the number of my days.”

We find in Revelation the Lord has our days numbered in the book of life.  Again, the metaphorical implication is that at any day our lives could be changed dramatically and even to the point where it will be required of us.  The psalmist asks that he would be reminded of how fleeting his life is.  We need to be reminded of how fleeting our life is.  If you knew that this would be your last 24 hours how would your day change from what you would normally do today?  Who would you reach out to?  Who would you call?  What activities and events would you do?  My basic question is how would you make your life more significant just simply knowing that at any moment your life might be required of you?

The psalmist gives us an opportunity to recognize that we can every single day face the day as if God is going to embrace us and bring us home in vs.7.  What do we wait for?  My hope is in the Lord.  When we are able to hope in the Lord, when we are able to believe that God has our lives in His hand and that each breath and each step that we take are steps with the Lord, then we are able to face every single moment of our life as if it is our last.  For me it really is not a morbid thought.  I want to see Jesus, I want to see my creator, I am looking forward to that day.  But I love this life so much that I am very much happy with the way things are going down here as well.  My motto is: Life is awesome, and then you go to heaven.  Both are great choices and both provide an opportunity to see and do the Lord’s work.  

Remember, any day your life might be required so take advantage of today.

As you are reading through the psalms, especially psalm 38, it might also be a good idea to dally in the book of Job.  There is a great parallel between this psalm and the book of Job.  Really starting at vs.6 and following you hear many Job like qualities: I am utterly bowed down and prostrate, I am utterly spent and crushed.  Vs.11 is one that really speaks to what the reality of Job was as we read: My friends and my companions stand aloof from my affliction, and my neighbors stand far off.  We find that happening in Job where his friends told him to confess the numerous sins he must have committed because he was so bad off, and even his wife told him to curse God and die.

We do not believe today that we are sick or that we suffer from ailments because we have somehow sinned against God.  There is not a 1 to 1 correlation between our sin and God’s punishment against our bodies.  It just doesn’t go together.  But there is an undercurrent in much Christian thought that illness and disease is somehow related to our faith.  We need to push that away from our mindset.  

But the author moves away from speaking of his physical ailments to beseeching the Lord in vs. 21-22 to not forsake him, to not be far from him, to hurry up and help him, because the Lord is, after all, our salvation.

If you look at vs. 11 I wonder if you are able to identify where in the New Testament we might find that verse.  It states simply: the meek shall inherit the earth.  Look at Matthew 5:5 and see if you  hear the same words that the psalmist states in these verses.  The meek shall inherit the earth.  So who are the meek and what earth shall they inherit?  Well, unfortunately the psalmist does not answer that question in these verses.  But when we look at the New Testament we know that the meek are those on the margins of society.  Jesus always focuses on those.

But as we continue along in the psalm he does address other issues.  This psalm is closer to Proverbs rather than Psalms.  I once heard a theologian state thay reading proverbs is like driving cross country with your mother-in-law.  I was never able to relate to that analogy since my mother-in-law was awesome and I actually did take her for a fairly long ride on my motorcycle in seminary.  I would take her advice any day if she were still living.  But you hear the psalmist say: refrain from anger, forsake wrath, don’t fret.  If you look at vs.25 and following you can hear a wizened David, or if we were looking at Proverbs a wizened Solomon.  

It is nice to be able to hear a psalm and feel the advice flow over you and lean upon the words knowing that God is guiding in such a way that if we were just to listen he would lift us up on his wings.  Allow that to happen.

For this blog today all I can comment on are the last two days.  The psalm begins by speaking against all those who would act against the desires of the Lord.  But then he transitions quickly to speak about the faithfulness of the Lord, how precious is His steadfast love.  It just seems that no matter what takes place, David, the writer of the psalms just can’t seem to forget that God remains faithful forever.  

We’ve had an emotionally draining, but spiritually uplifting, couple of days here at First Presbyterian Church.  I have never heard the church sing quite the way that it sang on Saturday.  The walls were still shaking on Sunday.  But it is in these times that we are reminded that we are church, that we are the people of God.  

So do you get the sense that at the beginning of the psalm the author is asking God to do some really not nice things to his enemies?  Go ahead and look at vs 1-8 and you hear how the author beseeches God to rise up and defend him and to do some not nice things to those who would do not nice things to him.  Okay, so this is probably where I need to quote my Savior Jesus who said in Matthew 5:38-48 to turn the other cheek.  You have a whole listing of opportunities that we need to take to love our enemy.  It is quite different from today’s psalm.  The author also includes a type of quid pro quo where he says in vs.9 (if you do these awful things to my enemies) “then my soul shall rejoice in the Lord.” The assumption is that if God, you do not do these things, then maybe I’ll just keep my rejoicing to myself.

It is a very human prayer and a very human emotion, but one that we must avoid.  We have to be more like Matthew 5 people than Psalm 35 people.  As the psalm continues you see that the author points out the times that he was a neighbor to them.  He prayed for their healing, and they repaid him by ridiculing him and causing him pain and suffering.  As he continues on in this psalm y0u can almost hear him pointing out that his enemies are not doing the things that we were encouraged to do yesterday in Psalm 34.  His enemies do not keep their tongue from evil (vs.16), nor seek peace and pursue it (vs.20), they speak deceit (vs.20).

The author tells the Lord to wake up just like in I Kings 18 where Elijah battles the prophets of Baal and as Baal is proven to be impotent the prophet states in vs.27 “pray louder for if he is really a god maybe he is sleeping.”  It seems as if in vs.23 the author has gotten to the end of his rope and calls out to the Lord to wake up.  Even if elsewhere later on in psalm 121 we read that the Lord does not slumber or sleep.  But sometimes in our frustrations we say things we don’t mean to say.  

The psalmist ends with a call for all those who are on his side to rejoice with him, but only when the Lord will respond.  The assumption is that the Lord will respond even if he has not yet.  All the way to vs.28 we read then my tongue  shall tell of your righteousness.  Not until then.  I pray that we will be able to tell of the Lord’s righteousness even as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and even when our “enemies” have mocked us beyond our ability to take.  I pray that we don’t have to wait to taste that the Lord is God before we tell of His goodness.