Answer Us When We Call - Psalm 20, Part 2

In the previous post, I mentioned that I feel a certain amount of shame over an area where I doubt God. I have full confidence in the almighty power of God.  It's never been an issue of whether God could show his power in my life, but rather an issue of whether God would.  After spending the past several years with the general feeling that God wouldn't use that power in my life (whether I should have been feeling that or not isn't really the issue right now), I am noticing a certain amount of bitterness in my relationship with God that wasn't there before.

All that being said, I am excited to look at the second part of Psalm 20.  I broke this up into two parts not because the psalm is particularly long (it isn't), but because I felt like my thoughts were going in such different directions they just needed to be posted separately.

The last part of Psalm 20 begins with a very confident statement, "Now this I know."  I talked about this some in my last post, but I do want to take a second to remember the reason David, the psalmist, is so assured.  Here's what he knows: "The Lord gives victory to his anointed.  He answers from his heavenly sanctuary."  He doesn't say when or how this victory will come or try to explain why it hasn't come yet, he just has overwhelming faith that it will come.  Somehow.

The next part of the psalm talks about the two choices when it comes to trusting that this victory is coming:

1. Trust in chariots or in horses.  (Now I'm going to take some interpretive license and apply that thought to some of the worldly things I might be tempted to trust in.  Like myself and my own abilities.  After all, I don't think many of us put trust in chariots anymore!)
2. Trust in the name of God.  

To help with our decision of what to trust, David lets us know where both choices lead:

1. Those who trust in "chariots" are brought to their knees and fall.
2. Those who trust in God will rise and stand firm.

Now, maybe it's the nerd in me, but I actually get excited at the poetry of this.  Trust in worldly things and be brought to your knees; trust in God and rise.  Trust in worldly things and fall; trust in God and stand firm.  Does anyone else see the beauty of this simple juxtaposition?  

Here's another interesting thought that just occurred to me: those who trust in worldly things fall and are brought to their knees.  What a perfect time to pray, to repent and trust in God instead, to be given the opportunity to rise and stand firm!  

When I first opened to this psalm, I quick skim of the verses led me to believe that it was a gloating, victorious passage.  It is not what I assumed it to be.  The words written by David so long ago apply to my life more than I imagined.  It's not at all about basking in the victory God has provided, but instead about trusting that God will answer and protect and provide that victory.  It's about firmly and confidently trusting and having faith in God and that in itself being a source of joy and comfort.  

May the Lord Answer You - Psalm 20, Part 1

Here is yet another example of a psalm that actually makes me nervous to think about, much less reflect on and write about.  For some reason, the beginning of this psalm leaves me feeling intimidated.  I'm not sure I can even explain what it is that leaves me feeling like anything I could say would be inadequate, but I think it all boils down to one word: shame.

Let me attempt to explain.  You see, I have been a Christian for a very long time.  I grew up in a Christian home with Christian values and have never doubted God's power.  So it shames me to be honest and say that I have been struggling for a while now with the perceived lack of God's power in my life.

Maybe I need to explain my explanation.  I know in my head that God is all-powerful and I believe that to be true whole-heartedly.  However, I have, at times, doubted whether God will use that power in my life in tangible ways.  It has never been an issue of could God, but rather would God.  Many times it has seemed, at least, that the answer is that God would not, leading to a vague sense of bitterness on my part.

So, when I read Psalm 20 and see a list of things that God is fully capable, I am conflicted because I believe my God can accomplish all that and more, but I don't have as much confidence that he will do that in my life right now.  And what does it say about my faith that I lack that confidence?

Verses 1 through 5 are framed by two very similar sentiments:

• May the Lord answer you when you are in distress.
• May the Lord grant all your requests.

In between though, may start to help me process through some of the bitterness I have felt.

Following the opening line, "May the Lord answer you when you are in distress," there is a list of requests.  May God:

• protect you
• send help
• grant support
• remember your sacrifices
• accept your offerings
• give you your desires
• make your plans succeed

Without transition, this is followed by what the response to those answered prayers would be: shouts of joy and lifting high the banner of God.  Basically, this means a lot of loud and obvious praising of God for bringing victory and answering prayer.  

Then comes the reminder that God hasn't yet answered the prayers, "May the Lord grant all your requests."  The psalmist, David in this case, has listed his requests in confidence fully believing that God could do all of that and more.  I wonder if he felt any shame over doubting whether God would answer.  

I tend to think that there wasn't any shame because the very next line boldly states, "Now this I know." There is no room for doubt in that confident, faith-filled statement.  Makes you wonder what would have David so confident if his prayers hadn't been answered yet.  

Well, here it is: "The Lord gives victory to his anointed.  He answers from his heavenly sanctuary..."  Again, no room for doubt or shame in that statement.  God may not have answered yet, but David had faith that he would.  

Like I said before, I have never doubted the power of God.  Maybe it's time for me to start trusting in that power a little more.  Then maybe I will share a little bit of David's confidence.

The (Brutally) Honest Truth

Just a caution, if you can't handle someone being brutally honest with where they stand with God, pretend you never saw this post.  The whole point of this blog has been to honestly share what God is doing in my life, through my struggles and triumphs.  This is one of the struggles and I'm not exactly sugar-coating it.

I cannot catch a break.  I know I've said this before to some friends and I might have even said it in a post.  I feel like every time I am doing what God led me to do in the first place, he starts loading me with more and more until I can't handle it anymore.  I have surpassed my breaking point.  A couple days ago, I was approaching it and now it feels like that invisible threshold is miles behind where I am now.  I am so angry I can barely make it from one minute to the next without showing it in some way, whether through body language, the way I talk to the people I love, or just flat-out crying for no observable reason.  I am falling apart at the seams.  

Here's what I know some of you are probably thinking right now, "God will take care of you if you let him."  The reason I know that's the Christian thought-process is because I have been coached to automatically think like that for as long as I can remember.  This type of automatic thinking just isn't cutting it.  I'm still not denying God or walking away from Him, but I have reached the point where I can't even think about Him without being angry.  I need to be able to move past the automaticity to something that is more meaningful, but I just can't get there.

What happened to put me over the edge?  One of my children picked up a stomach bug, something that I do not handle very well, especially when it happens in the middle of all the other stressors I am dealing with.  I was driving home from work and I remember just begging God to just let it be just the one child.  After all, with four kids in the house, this could easily turn into a weeks-long marathon of no sleep and cleaning up messes.  Add to that a diabetic husband, and my worry level goes through the roof.  Scott could easily end up hospitalized from something as simple as a stomach virus.  So, as I almost never do, I asked God to just take this one thing away from us.  Let us handle fevers, colds, coughs, just not a stomach virus.  I felt a release.  I felt a peace.  Two things I don't generally feel when I pray recently.  Usually I feel, well, nothing.  So, I trusted that God really would let this end with the one child.

No more than 24 hours later, another child develops the same stomach bug and my fragile trust was broken.

I can already think of dozens of arguments against my current thinking.  You might be thinking them, too.

It's just life; it's not like God is making the stomach bug go around.  But, the all-powerful God, whom I have been worshiping since I was a kid could have cut me a break on this particular round of stress because I asked.  He just didn't.

I'm just overreacting because of my current, temporary circumstances.  It goes deeper than that.  Whether it's stomach bugs or other things that just happen to go wrong, for years I have been loaded past the breaking point when I'm actively trying to follow God.

Satan is just trying to keep you from God.  So why is God letting him when our relationship is already so tenuous.

I just need to "give it up to God."  Why?  In the recent past, that seems to be the times when things get the worst.

Even if I'm thinking these things, I shouldn't publicize them.  That could make people stumble or turn people away from God.  I'm not giving up on God.  If anything, this blog is proof that I would rather struggle through my relationship with Him than give up on Him.  Maybe someone can even relate to the struggle.

Am I anywhere close to renouncing my faith?  Absolutely not.  Am I struggling with it?  Definitely.

Psalm 13 - Far More Questions than Answers

Time to "break it down" again.

Verses 1-2
How long...

• Will God forget me?
• Will he hide his face from me?
• Must I wrestle with my thoughts?
• Must I have sorrow in my heart?
• Will my enemy triumph?

Verse 3a

A demand for God to answer

Verses 3b-4

Why God needs to answer

Verses 5-6

Statement of trust and praise


This psalm really does summarize my feelings.  I'm no longer angry at God (except every now and then), but I definitely understand questioning him.  I still feel like he is far off.  Really, I could echo most of the first two verses, claiming them as my own.  Then even put into words things I've had trouble explaining adequately.

For example, "Will [God] forget me forever?"  Are things ever going to get better, meaning am I ever going to get to the point where I no longer feel abandoned or distant?  "How long will [He] hide his face from me?"  And, why does it feel as if God is hiding his face from me?  Finally, "How long must I wrestle with my thoughts?"  Really, how long do I need to wrestle through the Psalms before God feels near to me again?  I really do feel like wrestling is the most apt description as I am battling for each and every minuscule amount of progress.

I wonder if David's demands for an answer were, in fact, answered.  He tells God to look on him and answer him, two very bold commands.  It encourages me to know that I can be equally as bold in asking God to answer me.  But, I also wonder, have I not been bold enough yet?  Or, have I been too bold?  Or, maybe it's just going to be awhile.  Did David get answered quickly?

David also had reasons to back up his demands.  What reasons do I have?  It's not killing me, as David alludes to in his own psalm.  I don't think the distance I'm feeling is making any enemies triumph over me.  What reasons could I possibly claim?

Finally, as I've noted repeatedly, David ends the psalm with praise and a promise of trust, even though no answer had been given.  It seems odd to me that he chooses to say he trusts in God because of his unfailing love, though.  After all, he was just complaining that God had basically turned away from him.  How could that possibly make him trust in God's unfailing love?  Could he perhaps have been only restating a long-ago accepted truth about God to reassure himself that God was, in fact, trustworthy?

Then, to end it all, David says he will sing praises because God has been good to him.  Again, it doesn't mesh with the previous verses.  Is David intentionally reminding himself of his blessings?

This, to me, is very frustrating.  I know I went into reading the psalms ready and willing to ask the tough questions and I said that I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up with even more questions.  However, I did not fully estimate the frustration that could come from 1) ending up with more questions than answers, and 2) not feeling any closer to God - at all.  I'm committed to keep working at it, but it's quite possibly even harder than I expected.  

Psalm 12

Well, I guess I can't put it off any longer.  I have been trying to figure out Psalm 12 now for a couple weeks and I just can't figure out how it relates to me.  I just can't seem to find the right perspective with which to read it.  You see, the psalm deals with unfaithfulness and disloyalty, deception and boasting.  Things that don't seem to be relevant to my life at the moment.

So, I'm going to resort to a previous strategy and break the psalm down into broad sections:

1. David requests help from God (verses 1-4).
2. David quotes God as saying he will protect the weak and needy.  Then, he asserts that the words of the Lord are "flawless," meaning that if God said it, it must be true (verses 5-6).
3. David's prayer of confidence to God.  He states that God will be true to his word (verses 7-8).

Breaking the psalm down in this way helps me to generalize the meaning.  I may not be able to relate to unfaithfulness and deception, but I can relate to feeling the need to make requests of God.  My requests are just different.  I'm asking for relief, stamina, refuge.  

I really like that David goes straight from his request to quoting God.  And then, straight to saying that God's word is flawless and pure.  I think this is something I need to remind myself of.  A lot of times when I feel like my requests are unheard, my brain automatically quotes a familiar scripture about God's faithfulness and I cringe because, at the time, it doesn't ring true.  Then, I move on to the next thought.  I can't remember the last time I actually reminded myself that I can trust scripture and have fought back against my instinct to bristle at the "churchy" answers.   

That last insight may seem odd to you, or maybe even off-putting.  But, because of my perceived lack of refuge, I am having to fight to trust God.  I know that he has never been untrustworthy, but I have to constantly remind myself of that and even create arguments to prove to myself that God has indeed been faithful.  

Now that I've been honest about that, I'm going to challenge you.  If you have ever felt that way, please leave a comment letting me know if you found successful ways to re-trust in God.  Your support will be appreciated immensely.  If you can't relate to what I'm saying, please ask questions.  I'm serious.  Every single person who has asked me questions about the blog has helped me to reflect and make another tiny step toward complete faith.  So, thanks again to anyone who has pushed me to think more about my journey.