A brief blogging sabbatical

I do apologize for suddenly going silent on the blog this past week or so. Honestly, I had no desire to write for the first half of the time, and no desire to publicly share what I wrote for the second half. I've been wondering about why I write on this blog, what its purpose is in my life, and what its purpose ought to be, and I haven't arrived at conclusive answers to any of those queries. When I started the blog, I just wanted a way to share all the thoughts that were always bubbling up in my mind - but now I find that it's putting incredible pressure on me, and becoming less of a joy and outlet and more of a burden and obligation (the tipping point might have been trying to establish a schedule of future posts for myself with the whole Psalms project...). So for the time being I'm going to take a break, write in my journal instead of online for a while, and try to get back to the point where sharing my thoughts is a joy. I do love blogging - I just can't handle the pressure I allowed it to have over me, and now I need to do a kind of detox before I can really get back into it. I'm not thinking it'll take too long, so don't worry :) Thank you for reading all my random thoughts over the past year! Hopefully I'll see you here again soon!

He has not forsaken us

One of the deepest emotional pains that one can feel, I believe, is the fear or belief that God is not love, or that one is not loved by God, or that God's grace is not sufficient to cover one's sins, or that God is distant and displeased (they are all permutations of the same feeling, I think). When one has known and seen God, and experienced His love and mercy, He becomes the deepest desire of one's heart; He overwhelms us with the torrents of His love, and we respond with adoration. So at any point after that, if we begin to fear that we have lost that love through some sin we have committed or righteousness we have left undone, the pain of that fear will penetrate to the depths of our heart like a dagger that stabs and a club that crushes.

Unfortunately, the emotional nature of this fear makes it incredibly difficult to counter! Reminding ourselves of the truth of God's love, going back to the cross and remembering the pain He suffered on our behalf, and repeating the assurances of His grace to ourselves time and again are all good things to do, and they can help restore a soul to joy and confidence in Christ - but I think it is also good to cry to God in the midst of our fear, as the author of Psalm 6 does. For an emotional pain there must be an emotion outlet and an emotional healing.

"O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger,
Nor chasten me in Your hot displeasure.
Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak;
O Lord, heal me, for my bones are troubled.
My soul also is greatly troubled;
But You, O Lord - how long?
Return, O Lord, deliver me!
Oh, save me for Your mercies' sake!
For in death there is no remembrance of You;
In the grave who will give You thanks?" - Psalm 6:1-5

The truth that he knows - God's mercy and deliverance of His people, His righteousness and healing power - is interspersed with what he feels and fears - that God is angry with him, and has forsaken him, and is abandoning him to death; the desperate plea of v3 captures it perfectly: "But You, O Lord - how long?" In his head, he knows that in God is deliverance and salvation; he knows that God will rescue him and not abandon him. But in his heart, he feels that God has already forsaken him - that the pain and the trials have continued longer than he can bear already, and that God is not with him in them. It's a place we've all been in, I think, particularly if a specific trial or struggle (read: external problem or internal sin issue) has lingered with us for any length of time. You said You would sanctify me, Lord! Why do I still struggle and fail so much with this one temptation? And You said You would be with me always and work all things for good, Lord! Why is my life such a wreck of circumstances, then? Why do my endeavors wither and die instead of prospering when I'm trying to follow You?

But there is beauty even in that emotional plea, twisted as it is by the lies the world has spun about the impermanence of love and the impossibility of grace, because he is trying desperately to feel and believe the truth that he knows - and because, at the end, there is hope. Our cries to God do not have to be perfect or sinless for Him to hear us; He hears our weeping and our supplication, no matter how weak and frail and faithless we are, and He will receive our prayers. He has not forsaken us, and He never will; His love has not failed us and His grace will endure through all eternity.

A God of mercy

If it is true that God takes no pleasure in wickedness - that He "hate[s] all workers of iniquity" and "abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man," as Psalm 5:4-6 says - than it is a problem of incredible concern and importance for each and every one of us. I wouldn't say I was bloodthirsty (far from it, in fact!), but when I see the bitterness, hatred, and resentment my heart holds on to and even takes pleasure in, I can't deny that there is wickedness and sin inside me. And the general consensus of the rest of humanity, and the doctrine of Christianity, is that I am not alone in this deep internal sinfulness: for "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Rom. 3:23)

What do we do, then? What is the next step to take, when we see the sin inside us, when the weight of it breaks our hearts and leads us to the edge of despair, because all our efforts cannot eradicate it completely from our lives? I think the same psalm that described the righteous position of a holy God towards wickedness describes equally well the only beneficial next step for us to take:

"But as for me, I will come into Your house in the multitude of Your mercy;
In fear of You I will worship toward Your holy temple." - Psalm 5:7-8

Continuing to try to perfect myself will never succeed; the only option that can bring life, joy, and contentment is to come to God riding the waves of His mercy, carried in the arms of His mercy, lifted on the wings of His mercy: forgiven and reconciled by His mercy. Striving to lift myself to heaven or to give myself worth and value, to earn the respect and adulation of others and even of God, can only lead to the empty and cold triumph of pride that is more failure than victory even in its highest moment; but coming to God with reverence and humility, to lift unto Him the worship and adoration of a heart in love to a God worthy of praise - that is the key to peace and fulfillment, the one thing necessary to find meaning and freedom.

It is indeed true that God takes no pleasure in wickedness, but it is also true that He is a God of mercy, and because He is a God of mercy we can be a people of hope. We can cry to our God in our trouble, even when our trouble is brought on by our own sin, and we can wait eagerly, watching as for the morning, for His answer to our prayer. Because we have put our trust in Him, we can rejoice in the surety of His faithfulness, and let the burdens and pains of this life and of our sin be carried for us by the God who defends us with strength unassailable.

You have put gladness in my heart

Sometimes it seems that we are alone in our pursuit of truth - or rather, because the plural "we" gives a different feel to the word "alone", sometimes it seems to each one of us that he or she as a single individual is alone in his or her pursuit of God, that there are no fellow-companions fighting the same battles, seeking the same good, or walking the same path. In Psalm 4, I think, we see someone feeling just that way: someone who is attempting to follow God and who desires to live in righteousness and truth, but who sees all around him people seeking after the lies of this world and setting their hearts' love on worthless and insignificant things. And it is discouraging, for the psalmist and for any of us, to feel that way. When the psalmist says in verse 5 to "offer the sacrifices of righteousness," I think that persevering through this kind of loneliness and discouragement by faith is one of the sacrifices that he might have had in mind (another one, from v4, would seem to be controlling our anger and frustration with those who are pursuing sinful or temporal things and perhaps scorning our pursuit of goodness and truth). For righteousness does require sacrifice, and the denial of our pride and self-centeredness, on at least a daily level.

But sacrifice is not the end of the story, and the psalmist, fittingly, doesn't end there. When temporal things fade or fail, as they invariably must, or when worldly expectations or human relationships disappoint, if we have made those things the goal of our life then we will be left asking, in hard times, "who will show us any good?" (v6) - but if our heart's desire is to know and follow God, then even in those hard times we will know His joy and be filled with His peace. The joy that comes from knowing God surpasses even the greatest happiness that temporal prosperity can bring. It can be hard to believe that sometimes - when the harvest is coming in with its abundance of riches and rejoicing, and it seems as if no joy could ever be more complete, or when the world is falling apart into tattered gray rags and it feels as though no happiness could ever break through into that dismal half-light. But the joy that God can put in our hearts - the gladness that comes from the Lord of eternity - can endure through the dark times and shine brighter in the good than even the sun himself at his zenith.

Appearances and realities

So many of the psalms are like Psalm 3 - a cry to God for help and a testimony to His love and faithfulness. But what stands out to me as unique in this psalm is the end of verse 2: "Many are they who say of me, 'There is no help for him in God.'" Despite all that the psalmist knows to be true of God, the thoughts and words of those around him still have an impact on his life; like Job's wife, they make it harder, by their lack of faith, for him to remain faithful.

God is our salvation and our shield, our glory and our comfort, through any and all circumstances, as the rest of Psalm 3 goes on to say with beauty and power, but it doesn't always appear that way on the outside, to other people. To them, when we are going through some sorrow or trial, it may seem as if God has forsaken us or does not hear our cries. And even though we know that God is faithful, and that He has some good purpose for what we're going through, the naysayers around us can make it even more difficult for us to endure with faith and hope than it would have been in any case. When that is the case (and hopefully, if one is in a good community of believers, it is not often the case!), I think the example of the psalmist here is a good one: he reminds himself of God's power and past faithfulness, holding onto God - clinging to God with all his might - when all the world around him is trying to tear him apart or to make it seem that God is not who He has declared Himself to be. He finds strength for the present trial in the memory of the love and goodness of God he has seen revealed time and time again, and he refuses to let the feelings of the moment defeat the eternal truth that he knows, no matter how many voices weigh in on the side of those feelings.

The power that underlies grace

In Psalm 2, the rule of God - rightful and almighty authority - is contrasted with the rule of man - proud and greedy grasping for power and autonomy. We see the kings and rulers of the earth attempting to free themselves from what they perceive to be the bonds and chains of God over their lives, and God responding with derision because their attempt is so incredibly futile and with wrath because it is idolatrous rebellion and sin. But to be honest, the way the psalm is written has always been confusing to me, because it seems to paint God in a very negative light: as a wrathful God who delights in carrying out judgment on rebellious creatures, who desires to rule with an iron fist as a complete dictator, and before whom we come as cowering, terror-stricken subjects hoping that He will not be angry with us this time.

And this picture is so utterly the opposite of God as He has revealed Himself in the rest of Scripture that for a long time I've skirted around this psalm, bracketing it off in my mind as one of those parts of the Bible and Christianity that I just don't understand yet (which I think is often a healthy and helpful thing to do, because after all we are limited by nature and our understanding is furthermore hampered by sin, and there are a lot of things we don't understand now and may never understand at all in this life.) What I think I'm coming to understand, however, is that the focus of this psalm isn't on God's anger so much as it is on God's rightful and legitimate power and authority - and in our culture, we tend not to dwell much on that power and authority. A God of enduring faithfulness and unending love, without earth-shattering power or the authority of a judge and king, is a comfortable God, a God we can safely ignore when we want to but who will be there for us when we need Him. But the God who created the universe, without whose sustaining power our lives would not last a second, and whose innate holiness defines a moral law we can't even come close to living up to, is not a comfortable God. The God who seeks to reconquer our rebellious hearts with His grace and lovingkindness is also the God who will utterly destroy us in His righteous judgment if we refuse to surrender. And I think, if we lose our understanding of God's power and authority in judgment - if we cease to see God as the rightful and righteous King and Judge - we will also lose our understanding of the depths of His love and the riches of His grace. He is indeed a terrible and powerful God; the whisper of His wrath would utterly destroy us. But we do not need to be afraid or cower before Him without hope, awaiting the inevitable judgment, because He is also a God of love, who extends salvation to His people, and "blessed are all those who put their trust in Him."

The Seat of the Scornful

In Psalm 1, the blessed man is described as one who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scornful; that last phrase is one that has often confused me and given me cause to think and ponder. What I'm coming to think is that the scornful, or the mockers, are those who practice the soul-destroying art of flippancy in the Screwtapian sense. They are those who look upon good, noble, and virtuous things with a cynical and contemptuous gaze, or with open disregard for what they would call the foolishness and futility of those things. And to sit in their seat is to look at life from their vantage point and through their eyes. In some way I feel that this attitude of scorn toward life is one of the most dangerous and destructive things in the world, both for the individual who holds it and for the society around that individual, but it is incredibly difficult for me to express this importance with words of enough meaning and strength.

There are things in this world that are of primary and utmost importance, things that characterize our humanity and serve as the rich soil for our roots or the sky which healthy growth strives to reach. Some of these things are the innocent and fundamental aspects of physical and temporal life in the midst of all God's creation - things like hard work, marriage, babies, beauty in a flower or a mountain or the face of a woman, strength in the arms of a man, and the fellowship of believers worshiping God together. Others are the good and glorious principles and virtues that stretch through eternity and underlie all that is worthwhile in temporality - things like the love and grace of God, justice, righteousness, honesty, compassion, holiness, and judgment; the high praises of God in the mouths of His saints as they wield the two-edged sword of His word; all that is lovely, pure, noble, praiseworthy, and of good report.

But the destroyers of civilization - no, let us call them the destroyers of humanity - attempt to cut away at the reverence and value we ascribe to these things, and they do so with mockery, scorn, contempt, and the overriding derision of elite and enlightened opinion, first, and then of public opinion more broadly. If we cast away those things, however - if we trade in laziness and entitlement for diligence and hard work, for instance, or falsehoods and manipulation for honesty and faithfulness - what will we have left? There will be nothing left worth living for; there will be nothing left that is characteristically human in the majestic and beautiful sense of humanity for which we were all created, which we may one day hope to see, and which we as of yet can still see occasional glimpses here and now. By making those good and virtuous things objects of mocker and scorn, we lose both the rich soil of a godly and honorable temporal life and the high and glorious heavens that soar in the eternal visions and aspirations of one who seeks to know and follow God. Stunted and weakened, we wither inwards in petty sins and quiet despair, having barred the door of our hearts to both life and joy.