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.