Stuck, Unstuck

February 28, 2020

Sometimes when I read the Bible, my familiarity with the stories inhibits my learning something new. If the reading for the day consists of whole chapters or more, the individual stories get lost and I have to work to slow down and notice what’s there. It’s not uncommon for even that to be insufficient for me to get much out of it. 

At times like that, I remember what my seminary professor of preaching told us one day. “The sermon is a meal. You don’t eat the whole cow at one sitting. Don’t worry if you don’t cover it all on a given Sunday. There’s always next week.” I can’t remember the prof’s name, but his was one of only two seminary classes that was worth the tuition. 

So when I get stuck in one reading, I turn to something else, usually in the Psalms. My go-to pattern is to read according to the day of the month in a thirty day pattern. So for today, it was Psalm 28, 58, 88, 118, and 148. By reading the Psalms in this way, I’ve read through the entire Psalter in a month’s time. Almost without exception, something grabs me when I read the Psalms. 

Today it was the 88th Psalm where he cries out “day and night” to “the God of my salvation” (v.1). The writer is hurting. His “soul is full of troubles.” It’s a no good, terrible, very bad day for him. The worst of it is he sees his troubles as being inflicted by God himself. “You have laid me in the lowest pit...Your wrath lies heavy upon me...You have afflicted me...You have made me an abomination...” (vv.6-8). What recourse is there when it’s God himself who is the source of our troubles?

Christians often ascribe every discomfort and problem to “attacks from the Enemy,” ie. demonic activity. The reasoning behind this thinking is that God desires only good for us; we experience God’s favor through blessings. This understanding however, ignores one of the fundamental themes of Biblical Christianity—that following Christ involves a cross. We grow spiritually not only through Bible study, prayer, and worship, but also through trials and troubles. I don’t like those times when my soul is dry and my prayers seem dusty and parched, but I’ve learned that there are lessons God wants me to learn that cannot be discerned in pleasant pastures beside still waters. He has often driven me into the wilderness for my own good.

Though he doesn’t understand the ways of God, the psalmist understands that God is behind his troubles. Instead of shaking his fist to the heavens, he cries out day and night to “the God of my salvation” (v.1). He hasn’t received an answer, but he knows that even in his distress, his salvation is in God alone, and he keeps crying out, refusing to be denied. Like the widow in Jesus’ story, crying out to the unjust judge, Jesus’ promise is sure: “Shall not God avenge his own elect who cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily” (Luke 18:7-8). 

Today when the Gospel reading failed to stir me, the psalm did its work, and the Word of God did not return empty, but accomplished the purpose for which it was sent (Isaiah 55:1), and I am thankful.