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I have a few favorite, go-to Psalms and Ps. 46 is one of them. In it, the Psalmist both recognizes the deep pain and fear this life causes us and God’s power to overcome those fears. In fact, this Psalm is almost schizophrenic as it vacillates back and forth between the power of God to shape this world and the peace that comes to every Christian heart. I cannot read this Psalm without hearing it in my head in two totally distinct voices: one of quiet calm and peace, the other of overwhelming power and authority.
We all have times when it feels like the earth is giving way, the mountains are quaking and falling into the sea, and the waters are roaring and foaming all around us. It may be illness or finances. It may be family issues or job related stress. It could be anxiety or depression. This world is filled with news and situations and people who will gladly convince us that the world is ending any minute now.
And then we pray, or go to church, or sing songs and hymns and hear of the quiet, bubbling river that runs through us, God’s holy place. We sing of God’s eternal presence and protection. And we are told again and again, “Be still and know that I Am God.” And what is happening outside the church’s walls and what is happening inside are mutually incompatible, impossible to reconcile. When times like that come, read once again Ps. 46 and hear this dichotomy sung again and again. Be still, quiet yourself and the voices of terror around you, crawl up into God’s holy and never-ending lap, a lap that can hold us all, and hear the words of calm and peace coming from the LORD Almighty who is with us, who is our fortress.
Ps. 44 is a remarkable Psalm of trust in God, though reading it at first glance leads to other conclusions. Initially it looks like a Psalm of lament. God’s people, through the Psalmist, are crying out in confusion. “What have we done that you have abandoned us,” they cry. They cannot understand that though they have been faithful, God has left them to their enemies. Lament indeed.
Yet the underlying belief system is one of faith and trust. To ask God why He seems to have abandoned them is to assume that God is just. If we follow, they reason, we know You will bless us, yet You haven’t. What gives?
To ask God why He hides His face is to assume that this is unusual, and that normally God reveals His face to His people and watches over them.
To ask God why He sleeps is to assume that His absence in the fight, His lack of blessing upon His people, means something has happened to turn Him away because He is always there.
The very questions they ask God in their lament reveal their trust in Him and His care for them.
Do you ever find that your faith reveals itself in your lament? When you cry out to God for abandoning you, does this reveal that God is normally with you and that abandonment is unusual to the point of terrifying?
We know that God is with us. We know that God is just. We know that God does not leave us without reason. We can cling to that in faith even when they are disrupted for a time. Perhaps especially then.
In his book, Anxious for Nothing, Max Lucado takes this passage as an example of how not to be anxious. He examines Paul’s statement at the end of the passage and breaks it apart.
“You should have listened to me…” Sometimes the right thing to do is to stand and face God’s rebuke. Did you realize God rebukes us sometimes? When our anxiety is due to our sinfulness, God rebukes us. When we are facing the consequences of our sinful actions, God rebukes us. “You should have listened to Me…” God says, and He’s right. But knowing our loving God well tells us that the rebuke is neither hateful, wrathful, or dangerous for us. It is loving if stern, and ultimately for our own good.
“Keep your courage…” Max encourages us, which literally means “to make courageous”. God’s reminder in our anxiety is to remain, regain, or find courage. And this is easier when we know our loving God who has power over storms and sicknesses and anything else that may come our way. While not promising to deliver us from everything we face, God does promise to be with us, and that is reason enough for courage.
“And angel stood beside me…” God is active and at work in this world. And God’s plans will not be foiled. When God calls us to a task for Him, that task will not go undone if we refuse. He will simply call someone else to do it instead and we’ll miss out on the opportunity to be part of God’s plan. And if that is not rebuke enough, then we need to be sure we’re truly following God.
“We must run aground…” Sometimes the solution to our sin-made problem brings hardship. God’s forgiveness does not negate the effects of our sinfulness. Sin has consequences. I can forgive my son Isaac for jumping in the puddle when I tell him not to, but he will still have a wet foot. The good news is that we can face those consequences because we know that God walks with us as we do.
A speaker was sharing about a conversation he had with a Millennial last year. The Millennial was going to leave his job and find a new career. “I’m just not finding my current job fulfilling,” he said. When asked how long he’d felt this, he said it was since he began the job… three months earlier.
We can complain that “kids today” don’t understand that you have to stick to something for a while before deciding if it is worthwhile. We can complain that they are terminally impatient and can’t keep their attention on one thing for more than 30 seconds. But the reality is that we all have a problem with patience, with temporal perspective, and with waiting as long as we should.
The Psalmist today gives us hope that though the wicked seem to flourish in this life, their flourishing will be short-lived and then will fade to nothing. Our persecution and lack of wealth will be equally short lived and then we will become all that God has in store for us. But we have to be patient.
And patience is one of our weakest points. We’ve been sick, or afraid, or hurt for a few days, a few weeks, even a month and we question God’s love, His power, and His nearness. We see the corrupt grow in wealth and power for a year or two and we question God’s promise to bring justice to our lives.
But God calls us to see with His perspective. He calls us to look with eternal eyes. If we could see millennia as He does, we’d see that wealth and power are fleeting and don’t last, and that righteousness and love last forever. But since we cannot, we have to trust Him, to live by faith, and know that He is acting justly, lovingly, graciously… but seldom as quickly as we’d like.