“From bad to worse”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Friday, January 19, 2024
Psalm 35 (Forward, p. 82) CEV p. 574
I don’t know which ones of his many woes comes across as worst for David, for he has many of them. He begins the psalm with mentions of the physical dangers he is facing. They are plotting to kill him, to hunt him down and harm him. In his own words, he says that they have ‘hid a net to trap me, and they dug a deep pit to catch and kill me” (verse 7b), although he ‘did them no harm’. In fact, he has done just the opposite of this as having actually prayed for them:
“When they were sick, I wore sackcloth and went without food [fasted]. I truly prayed for them, as I would for a friend or a relative. I was in sorrow and mourned, as I would for my mother” (vs. 13-14).
This ‘repaying evil for good’ is something that he finds extremely grating, but there is more. Worthless people, people in fact that he didn’t even know, made it a practice to poke fun at him and sneer. Furthermore, they concoct lies and say hurtful things about him, and are quick to gloat over his troubles and accuse falsely him of various misdeeds.
But, perhaps, there is one thing that is even worse, and that is the seeming inaction on the part of God. In verse 17a, he says: “But all you do is watch! When will you do something?” Nevertheless, despite what must seem like a grievous disappointment, he does not give up on God. He still goes to implore God to come and help him, and to do so quickly. “Please don’t keep silent or stay so far away. Fight to defend me, Lord God…” (verses 22b-23). Indeed, that is the kind of prayer is interspersed through the entire psalm.
To me, this is most instructive, and should serve as a telling example and pattern for our lives—and our prayers! Yes, we will all experience shocks and difficulties in life—and yes, even experience some level or kind of disappointment with God—but, like David, we should never give up on God, and never fail to go to Him for help in those times of need.
Forward notes: “Let those who favour my cause sing out with joy and be glad; let them say always, ‘Great is the Lord’” (verse 27a).
“During the pandemic, I decided to write a Lenten meditation blog for 40 days. I thought that amid all the pain, uncertainty, isolation, and death, we must search for joy. Some days I struggled to find the joy, the light, the hope—and even asked publicly, ‘Shall I continue?’ I only received affirmations: ‘Yes, you must continue.’
“God’s promise is that joy may be in us when we abide in God’s love and ways. I have continued singing this joy-song, intentionally seeking out and enacting an element of joy each day in my life and punctuating it with a declaration: ‘Things that bring me joy!’
“With God, our joy is inside of us, coursing through our veins, never wavering and always complete. Seek out your joy!”
Moving Forward: “Make a list (or sing them!) of the things that bring you joy”.
A concluding thought: I would beg to differ with today’s author. She states confidently, ‘With God, our joy is inside of us, coursing through our veins, never wavering and always complete.’ Having experienced burn-out, and the dark night of the soul, when my inner joy was entirely absent, I can vouch for the fact that joy is not always there, never waving and always complete. I did not feel the presence of God, nor His love or His joy, even one little bit, but that did not mean that He wasn’t there, or that He didn’t love me. Those were things that I discovered—or rediscovered—later in this journey. I learned that I was loved and cared for, and that God was with me, no matter what I was feeling or experiencing at any particular point in life. And so, I knew that I could trust Him no matter what!