Every week at church I attend for the last four months here in Vancouver, we read Psalms chapter by chapter. What interests me is that the book of Psalms is rich of emotions. When I read Psalms, I try to put myself in the psalmist’s shoes, trying to see what he saw, and feeling what he felt. Sometimes it is a praise full of joy, “Oh Lord oh Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth” (Psalm 8)…and we like that song. The next day, we flip over to Psalm 10:1, “Why O Lord do you stand far off?”.
Isn’t it life we live? Sometimes a sad day comes right after a happy one. Sometimes we praise the Lord, and the next day we complain to God. Some people have this idea that crying and complaining to God is a sign of poor faith. That if you have strong faith you should not feel weak. Some pastors and teachers convey the idea that good Christians don’t cry, they are always happy and upbeat. So some churches and home environments become places where people engage in denial, bottling up pain that life brings up for them. Some pastors lead people to believe that we should always be positive and happy and upbeat, no tears here, we are strong people, we are people of faith. For me, that is simply unreal and it is not what I found from the Bible.
Well, I spent more than a year at a church where failures are seen as results of poor faith. I was one of the people who believe “speak it, believe it, receive it”. As a result, really, my relationship with God was empty & full of denial. People don’t embrace honest worship to God. Thank God summer last year God came to rescue me although the rescue plan came at a cost which includes broken-hearted relationship, being abandoned, and lost of friends. Today, the more I realize that those hardships really has brought my relationship with God to a whole different level. It is said that the dark cloud of troubles is often the shadow of God’s wings. Be still and know that He is God =)
These laments in Psalms tell us that God wants us to be honest in our worship. When we lost our loved ones, when a spouse leave a marriage, when we lost our health, it is ok to not always smile, it is ok to not always jump up and down and worship, it is ok to be still before God and grieve and cry to face our pain and disappointment and to pour out our heart to God in prayer.
Make no mistake, while God wants us to share our complaints, our doubts, and our pain with Him, He does not want us to stay there. Some people (including me many times) seem to get stuck there. God does not want us to get stuck there.
Living in this fallen world, we are not intended to handle a lot of stuffs on our own. So God wants us to take it to Him in prayer. In all of these laments, the Psalmists admit there are some unpleasant realities that we as child of God live: there are not always quick solutions to our problems. Jesus himself mentioned that we will face problems in this world. And often those problems will cause us to complain to God. And that is ok. But like King David here, at some points, we need to move past our lament. Notice first half of Psalm David is weeping complaining but that changes in the second half of the Psalm (But I trust in Your unfailing love! Psalms 13:5)
David focuses on what he knows to be true, not his feeling. He begins to do what he needs to do. Ecclesiastes says there are times for everything (Ecclesiastes 3:1-15). And so it must be with us. We come to Him with trust believing Him in His goodness. There are a lot of people we cannot trust. But we can always trust God. When our lament flows out of deep trust with God, He will use our complaints to heal our spirit and to draw us closer to Him.
My life makes no sense in many occasions. It feels like that my life has been put in jeopardy. There are big doubts in most areas of my life (family, jobs, friends, relationship, etc). But it is also very true that in the midst of this, God still loves us. After going through some difficulties, it is beautiful to understand and sing a hymn “turn our eyes upon Jesus.” Also, God has graciously give so many heroes to stand beside me in life. Hope I can be one too for them somehow.
We trust, we pray, we obey, and then we just hold on, we may raise hard questions and complaints but we don’t walk away from God. We hold on to Him, we refuse to let go. Even when life makes no sense, we don’t let go. Even when pain persists, we hold on. Even there is no quick answer to our prayers, we hold on because we know that God holds us. He hold us in the name of Jesus Christ who himself went ahead to the cross to give us salvation. We hold on and we look ahead the day when Jesus Christ will come again, and we will experience full and complete resolution of all these difficulties in life.
Amazing love how can this be that You my God would die for me? And how about your life? Grace and Peace to you…Amen! =)
Vancouver, 3 weeks to Christmas 2009.