Psalm 43:3 – His Presence

As usual, here is my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹Judge me, O God. Plead my cause against an unloving nation. Against a man of deceit and injustice deliver me, ²because You [are] the God of my fortress.  Why do You reject me? Why do I walk to and fro mourning in oppression of a hostile one?

³Send forth Your light and Your truth. Let them guide me. Let them bring me to the mountain of Your holiness and to Your dwelling places.

In my last post I focused on the first phrase of verse 3, “Send forth Your light …” Of course what the Psalmist asks is for God to send forth His light and His truth.  I could expound for hours on the subject of God’s truth, but I’ve done that many times so I won’t here. Suffice it to point out that God’s truth is the only absolute truth. It is the bedrock upon which life, even civilization must be built. All other “truth” must bow to His. It is one of the challenges (and pleasures) of human existence to seek out the truths of our universe, that which we properly call science. But as much as I love science (and I do), even that is always subject to the limitations and errors of perception. Only God’s truth is absolutely “true.”

Note too that specifically the Psalmist wants God’s light and truth to guide him. He could have asked that God’s light and truth exonerate him or expose the villain. People often want God’s light and truth simply to add to their store of knowledge wherewith to impress their Sunday School class. But this psalmist’s passion is not just to be intellectual. He wants to walk with God. He wants God’s light and truth to be immediately practical. Guide me. Help me to know the way wherein I should walk. Help me to know how to think about this situation, what to do about it, how to respond to it. I would suggest it becomes particularly important to pray like this when we’re being treated unjustly precisely because we ourselves are sinners and prone to respond badly.

Interesting to note, too, that he specifically asks, “Let them bring me to the mountain of Your holiness and to Your dwelling places”.   I think it irrelevant whether he is referring literally to Jerusalem and the Temple or whether he is speaking spiritually of God’s presence. Either way it is the same in the end – it is God’s presence he desires. David longed in Psalm 23 (before there was a Temple), “And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” In Psalm 61 he prayed “I long to dwell in Your tent forever and take refuge in the shelter of Your wings.” In Psalm 27 he prayed, “One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple”.

“To gaze upon the beauty of the Lord”. I think I am just beginning to really understand and experience what David and the psalmist of our passage are talking about. All through my life, it has been a considerable comfort to be able to go to the Lord with my every trial, my every fear, my every need, to learn and to feed on the truth that He loves me and cares about me and wants to use those troubles for my good. I think underneath it all, part of the comfort was knowing that the trouble would end, wanting it to be over. Yes, I wanted to learn His lessons, grow closer to Him, and the like. But mainly I wanted it to be over. “Deliver me, O God!” And there is certainly nothing wrong with any of that. The writer in Psalm 116 praised God saying, “For You, O Lord, have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling …” Even here in Psalm 43, in verse 1 he prays, "Against a man of deceit and injustice deliver me." But I think I’m learning something even better, what he expresses here in verse 3 – the desire to see His face even in the trouble and to even find joy in seeing His face, in a sense oblivious to the trouble and whether it will or will not soon end. “One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple.”  One thing I ask. That I may dwell in the house of the Lord … all the days of my life.  Here in Psalm 43, the same sentiment is expressed, “Let [Your light and Your truth] guide me” not “out of this trouble” but rather “to the place where You dwell, into Your presence.”

In Psalm 27, David prayed “My heart says of You, ‘Seek His face!” Your face, Lord, I will seek.” I think, I hope I’m finally learning what David means. To see His face is the best thing of all. As long as I can see Him, I find hope and strength to live by. I find the strength to love and to rise above myself. As long as I can see His face, He really does lift me up. When I can’t see His face or when I lose sight of it, that’s when my world, my heart goes dark. To see His face, to be in His presence, to be where He dwells, those are the greatest gifts to enjoy in this world. And again, what amazes my heart is how I can actually enjoy those things even while I’m suffering the slings and arrows of this world’s misfortunes.         

May I see Your face clearly all day today. Whether in trouble or not, may Your light and truth guide me each step of the way. And may my best destination be not to escape my troubles but rather to find myself enjoying Your presence. “… and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Psalm 43:3 – Light and Darkness

As usual, here is my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹Judge me, O God. Plead my cause against an unloving nation. Against a man of deceit and injustice deliver me, ²because You [are] the God of my fortress.  Why do You reject me? Why do I walk to and fro mourning in oppression of a hostile one?

³Send forth Your light and Your truth. Let them guide me. Let them bring me to the mountain of Your holiness and to Your dwelling places.

What a verse (3, that is). Eleven words in the Hebrew original exploding with galaxies of hope and peace and strength. I think I could type on for hours. Where do I even begin? Hmmmm. Maria and the children sing, “Let’s begin at the very beginning. It’s a very good place to start!”

Seriously, let’s begin at the very beginning. And what does it say?

"Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day." (Gen. 1:3-5).

Our glorious God has been sending forth light and dispelling darkness for a very long time! And though light vs. darkness means nothing to Him (Ps. 139:11,12) , in His love He knows they are literally “night and day” to us. He Himself of course is “the Light of the world” and in His heaven “The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp” (Rev. 21:23).

Charles Wesley captured the intensely personal meaning of God’s light in his old hymn, “And Can It Be?”:

Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature’s night,

Thine eye diffused a quickening ray, I woke, the dungeon flamed with light!

My chains fell off, my heart was free,

I rose, went forth, and followed Thee!

“Light and darkness” is one of the enormous and fundamental fractals of our created existence.  The good guys dress in white; the bad guys in black. Bright sunshine is cheery and healthful; darkness is gloomy and dank. When I don’t know, I’m “in the dark;” when I figure it out “the lights come on!” In bright light I can see even minute details; in the darkness we’ll run into a wall. I have noticed for years that this contrast of light vs. darkness is a constantly recurring theme in the Bible. Once I set about to study it, then realized it was way too big a subject to even try to address with a single study. Now I know that is because it is a fractal. It is a pattern which bears upon our lives in a million different ways on a million different scales, but always that same pattern: light is good/ darkness usually bad.

And so, in our passage, the Psalmist pleads the Lord to “send forth Your light!”

Well would we pray that. Back in Psalm 36:9, David said, “In Your light, we see light.”

It is always true that we need God’s light to walk by. I need His truth to be “a lamp to my feet and a light for my path” (Ps 119:105); but we acutely need His light during those times of trial and trouble. Here in our Psalm, we’re dealing with those situations where we feel we are being unjustly mistreated, when others or even someone in particular is inflicting some misery into our life. How should I respond? Should I try to defend myself? Do I need to? How do I get this anger and hatred out of my heart? How can I return good for their evil? How can I even make myself want to? Why is the Lord allowing this? When will it end?

In all this confusion and emotion, we can pray, “Lord, send forth Your light!”

I have found over the years that at those times my evil heart doesn’t want to pray those words because way down deep I doubt it will do any good. My evil heart can’t imagine how God could send any light, so it persuades me, “Why bother?”

But when I gather up my faith and pray it anyway, it has always amazed me how He has, in fact, answered. I like Micah’s retort to his evil heart, “Rejoice not against me, my enemy, when I fall, for I shall arise; and when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light unto me” (Micah 7:8). Notice those words: “…for I shall arise; and when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light unto me.” Those are faith words and good medicine for believing hearts.

So let us ask, that we might receive. Lord, send forth Your light. 

Psalm 43:1,2 – Wrestling in the Darkness

As usual, here is my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹Judge me, O God. Plead my cause against an unloving nation. Against a man of deceit and injustice deliver me, ²because You [are] the God of my fortress.

 Why do You reject me? Why do I walk to and fro mourning in oppression of a hostile one?

Continuing from the last post, Psalm 43 was written in the context of some kind of injustice. In some way, the psalmist feels he is being treated unfairly or wrongly. It’s probably safe to say there’s never a time in our lives when we don’t feel we’re being treated unfairly or wrongly in some way or another. But then there are those times where the wrong is particularly painful, when it seems to be the main course in our meal of life. What are we to do? As in the last post, I am thankful the Lord included this passage of Scripture and others like it in the Bible. We have here recorded the prayer of a godly person as they face exactly what we do sooner or later. Hopefully as we study a passage like this, the Lord will help us be better equipped and able to respond to injustice in a mature and godly way.

Notice in verse 1, the focus is on the offender, the man of “deceit and injustice.” The psalmist asks the Lord to plead his cause against such a person. As we progress into verse 2, he gives the grounds of this request: “… because You are the God of my fortress.” In this world we may or may not have any human recourse to address the wrongs we suffer. Sometimes we do but I would contend that usually we do not. As I said before, in my experience it has generally done little good to try to defend oneself. Accusers, slanderers, and those who hurt others generally have little concern for truth. They have some other axe to grind or some personal gain they’re grasping for. Our “case” or our “truth” simply gets in the way of their evil. Again, there may be steps a person should take when under injustice. But even if there are, a believer soon realizes he is pretty much helpless in a world of trouble.

As in this Psalm, such realizations drive us to the Lord. Yes, it is true. He is the God of my fortress. Ultimately He and He alone can truly defend me and deliver me. Like Jesus, we must “entrust” ourselves “to Him who judges justly.” He is our strength and our strong tower. What that means to me is that I don’t have to let myself wallow in anger or self-pity. I can go on loving, being kind, even being joyful whether the immediate injustice is resolved or not. I am free to go on loving God, loving people, and honestly loving life, because I know that God is my fortress, He is in this for my good, and that the very best “deliverance” is when I let Him change me through it all, when I allow Him to make me better because of it..

As in this Psalm, however, before I get there, I may have to work through some more emotional turmoil. Notice, while the psalmist started his prayer feeling mistreated by another person, in verse 2 he turns the hurt toward God Himself. “Why doYou reject me?” It is worthy of note that the Hebrew word translated “reject” is a very strong word. It’s like taking a drink of milk only then to realize it is seriously spoiled. How violently do you spit it out? That’s the picture. And that is the intensity of the emotion the psalmist is feeling.

First we see how we’re being treated; in this case mistreated. We feel the pain and see the person(s) who seem to be inflicting it. But then, because we believe God controls everything, our hearts go to the fact that He is allowing it. “Why?” we ask in our grief! It seems that God has turned against us too! “Why do You reject me? Why do You allow this pain that makes me go to and fro mourning, being oppressed by this hostile person, this man of deceit and injustice, this unloving nation?”

Jesus cried from the Cross, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”

Job said, “Even today my complaint is bitter; His hand is heavy in spite of my groaning.

 If only I knew where to find Him; if only I could go to His dwelling! But if I go to the east, He is not there; if I go to the west, I do not find Him. But He stands alone, and who can oppose Him? He does whatever He pleases. He carries out His decree against me, and many such plans He still has in store. That is why I am terrified before Him; when I think of all this, I fear Him. God has made my heart faint.”

In Psalm 88, the psalmist complains, “My soul is full of trouble … I cry to You for help, O Lord. Why do You reject me and hide Your face from me? I have suffered Your terrors and am in despair. Your wrath has swept over me. You have taken my companions and loved ones from me; the darkness is my closest friend.”

It used to puzzle me to hear such things. “Where is their faith?” I asked myself. Then I realized the very complaint is an expression of their faith. The very fact they are praying to God in their struggle is because of their belief that He is in charge. As David said, “I believed, therefore I said, ‘I am greatly afflicted!” Now it is certainly possible to question God in unbelief. From unbelievers, we read and hear such things often, like “If there is a God, then why does He allow so much evil in the world?” In their case, the question is an expression of their unbelief. But, as in the Scripture passages above, Jesus, and Job, and the Psalmist, and even we can wrestle through the emotional turmoil of our pain “questioning” God. What’s important here is that we’re talking to Him.

Charles Spurgeon said, “He who is the Author of a mysterious trial can best expound it to us.” I believe we can say with confidence, based on the Scriptures, that it is permissible, even good, to inquire of God regarding our trials, even if at the time our emotions are raw and our questions even appear to be challenging Him. He’s a big God. He can handle it. And He “knoweth our frame, that we are but dust.” Though He must allow the trouble to accomplish some good in our life, yet in His compassion He sees our pain, He feels deeply for us, He pities our helplessness, as a mother loves and pities her helpless little baby. And so He is not offended by our seeming accusations and challenges. He wants us to talk to Him, regardless of, (yea, because of!) our current emotional state.

He is the very One who said, “No trial for the present seems joyous but grievous; but afterward yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who are exercised by it.”

So then, in the pain of our injustice, in the pain of being mistreated, even before we “get our head straight,” let us take the matter to our God. Let us fire away all the anguish and confusion and hurt, even if it seems to be aimed at Him. He can handle it. He wants us to talk to Him. And He alone will prove to be “the God of our fortress” before it is over. He alone can “fix” us. He alone can give us wisdom and strength. He alone can even give us joy in the midst of the storm.

Let us pray our hearts away! Like Jacob, let us wrestle with Him in our darkness and say, “I will not let You go, lest You bless me!”

Psalm 43:1 – Injustice?

  Here is my literal translation of the opening verse:

¹Judge me, O God. Plead my cause against an unloving nation. Against a man of deceit and injustice deliver me.

The context of this verse is immediately an unpleasant subject: injustice. What do we do when we sincerely feel we are being treated unjustly?

Now, any true Christ-follower is a person who is sincerely trying to have good relationships in this world, trying to do good to the people around them, to be faithful in their duties, to deal honestly with people, and the such. However, as my boss often quotes, “No good turn goes unpunished.” It’s true. No matter how sincerely one tries to do right, no matter how hard we work for the good of others, we live in a malevolent world that will often hate us for it. Sometimes we may simply be misunderstood but then, on the other hand, there really are sinister people who would deliberately ruin our lives, no matter how hard we’re trying to be the best we can be. Matthew Henry said, “As long as there are such bad men out of hell, and nations of them, it is not strange that good men, who are yet out of Heaven, meet with hard and base treatment.” All Jesus ever did was love people and they crucified Him for it.

How can a believer keep on keeping on in such an unjust world?

Again, it is an unpleasant subject, but sadly it is reality. And when injustice comes crashing through my life, how can I respond? What can I do? Fortunately the Lord included this Psalm, and others like it in the Scriptures, where we can find a godly person’s prayer in the midst of just such a situation.

So what does he do? Note first of all here that he calls God to be his judge. Herein is probably often times the very reason God allows us to suffer injustice – to remind us Who’s opinion really matters anyway. There is, in fact, enormous comfort in realizing that God knows our heart, that He knows that our motives were pure, that we did do it out of love. Even if others falsely accuse us, impugn our motives, and slander us behind our backs, we need to find solace is the Lord’s approval.

The other thing it can do is provide a platform for some serious self-evaluation. No matter how malevolent others may be, it is always possible (if not likely) that there is some truth in what they’re saying. That is also part of asking God to judge us. “Lord, if there is any truth in what they’re saying, open my eyes to see my faults. Even if they’re totally wrong in how they are attacking me, still I want to grasp every opportunity to see myself for who I truly am and allow You to change me.” What is good here is that we can count on the Lord to be accurate and fair in His assessment, to be gentle in His correction, and to be sincerely interested in our good – regardless of the malevolence of others and … regardless of the tyranny of our own cruel consciences. Oh wretched man that I am – my evil pride may hide my faults but my legalistic conscience clutches every opportunity to bludgeon my feeble heart. I can’t trust others’ evaluations but I can’t trust my own either. When under attack from without, I may yet prove to be my own worst enemy. More on this later.

But back to our Psalm, it is always possible that I genuinely have done nothing wrong (in this particular instance), that I do not deserve the ill-treatment I’m receiving. The Psalmist asks God to “plead my cause.” Sometimes one needs to defend himself. But it has been my experience in life that this usually accomplishes nothing. The people who accuse us usually have no interest in truth. They only want to “win.” Defend yourself if you should but I would say usually the Psalmist’s approach is best – just ask God to do the defending. He can “bring forth thy righteousness as the light and thy justice as the noonday sun.” If, rather than trying to defend ourselves, we just continue to respond in integrity, maturity, and kindness, the Lord can make sure the right people see through all the smoke. Sometimes “If a man’s ways please the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.”

So ultimately our case is really with the Lord anyway.

I like what Paul said in I Corinthians 4:3,4:

“I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.”

As I alluded to above, sometimes the malevolence is from without, but unfortunately it can come just as viciously from within. Paul’s total comfort is in to rest in God’s judgment – not even his own (!).

And, particularly regarding those assaults from without, thankfully we have Jesus’ example as noted in I Peter 2:21-23:

“To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps. He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in His mouth. When they hurled their insults at Him, He did not retaliate; when He suffered, He made no threats. Instead, He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly.”

“… He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly.”

As unpleasant as injustice may be, it is good for our souls to kneel beside Jesus and pray, “Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.” Sometimes it takes injustice to get us there.