We’re going to finally finish up this Psalm tonight... and so far we’ve broken this Psalm down, talked a few details and even discussed the format and prose.
Tonight I’d like to take an overhead view of this Psalm and simply make a few applicational observations about it verse by verse.
vs.1
- Feelings of abandonment.
- Many people feel abandoned, by others first, but more ultimately also by God. This is an understandable feeling for many who don’t have a personal salvation relationship with God based on grace and faith alone. If God worked off of a system of checks and balances, karma, good for the good and bad for the bad it would stand to reason that when bad things come our way God has either abandoned those who are faithful or that God is punishing them.
- It’s understandable for those who don’t really know God to have abandonment issues. In fact, on his death bed the renowned french atheist Voltaire is quoted as saying, “I am abandoned by God and man.”
- But what about those who do truly know God?
- I believe that this is the very reason we’re given this Psalm... to deal with the fact that this happens and to offer us some sort of God honoring response to feelings of abandonment.
vs.2 - “take counsel in my soul,” “sorrow in my heart”
- David here describe a natural emotional survival and defense strategy to difficult circumstances.
- It’s a mix of self pity and self reliance and it’s understandable. When trials come the safest thing to do is shut down. It’s like a virus that’s infected your computer... the longer the computer is on and the more open stations the outside world has to your computer the more damage the virus will do.
- The problem is, when you shut down you fail to function and very often fail to receive the outside help that you need.
- David’s come to a place where he has to demand a response from God... he’s really out of options here in this passage. The tone of the text, not to mention the demands that David makes of God in the next few verses indicates that David desperate.
- So this makes me wonder... why do we wait? Why do we hold onto our problems for a while before bringing them to the Lord? When you really step back and consider the question... any response to it seems foolish.
vs.3-4
- Here David gives God three imperatives:
- “Look on me…”
- “Answer…”
- “Give light to my eyes.”
- Imperatives. Telling God what to do.
- And then, if that isn’t enough, this man, this little piece of clay in the Potter’s hand, thinks that he has to explain to the Lord why. “Don’t you know, Yahweh, that if you don’t do something about this I am going to die? You do realize that, right? What... you’re going to let my enemies (ahem, you’re enemies too, by the way) you’re going to let my enemies win? Trample me into the dust with their victory dance?”
- This is a confrontation and so far doesn’t appear to be a God honoring response to difficult circumstance.
- But what really throws me off about this Psalm is this abrupt transition that comes, it seems, out of nowhere:
vs.5-6 - “But I trust in your unfailing love.”
- Bible commentators suggest that this may be an example of the good change that can come out of what Freud called the “talking cure”—you know, the idea that many of your problems can be solved as you talk through them. I think there is truth to this, that the expression of sorrow itself begins to heal and change.
- But I think there’s something else happening here.
- Because this “talking cure” might very likely lead David to the “I trust…” (which, in the Hebrew, is a perfect verb indicating completion), but I don’t see it leading to the “rejoicing” and “singing.”
- The clue is, I think, in the Psalmist’s choice of verb forms... David uses cohortative and jussive imperatives here.
- The Cohortative is used by a speaker to express his own will or determination, intention or desire to do a certain action
- Like the Cohortative, the Jussive is used to express a wish or a desire of the speaker.
- The forms of verbs (cohortative and jussive) that David uses to say “I will rejoice” and “I will sing” make it sound almost like the Psalmist is exerting his will.
- He’s willing himself to do these things in spite of how he feels he should be reacting.
- There isn’t a change of heart here... David isn’t all the sudden better, the problem isn’t suddenly resolved and the burden hans’t been suddenly lifted.
- Instead, I see this Psalmist singing through his teeth, with the accompaniment of sweat and tears.
- This is a song that is sung not with his hands open and arms raised, but with a kind of fist-clenching, muscle-flexing determination.
- Which is an amazing place to end this lament Psalm... because sometimes a Godly response to something is simply obedience and submission void of understanding, an emotional shift, of resolution.
- As emotionally charged as this Psalm is... this is a highly logical response to suffering.
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