Monday, December 15

Scripture: Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God (Psalm 42:11). 

Observation:  The most common genre in the psalms is the psalm of lament. These are songs of anguish. They put pain to music. In modern times, we’d call these songs “the blues.” Arising out of the Great Depression, the blues are mournful songs giving voice to human suffering. The pain in the blues is undiluted by optimism, wishful thinking, or looking for the silver lining. You sing the blues when life just plain stinks and you’re over it. A psalm of lament is the blues.  

The psalmist is doing something far deeper and more important than complaining; this is grieving. The psalmist is grieving a loss. We’re not told exactly what the loss was, but whether the loss was a person, an economic situation, a job, or simple satisfaction in life, the loss has sent the psalmist into free fall. His soul is cast down, screaming in pain, and the screaming won’t stop.  

But then the psalmist makes a choice. The psalmist chooses to defy the pain and puts hope in God. The psalmist knows that he will eventually praise God “again.” The psalmist recognizes that his free fall into the pit of despair will hit bottom, and when it does, his soul will begin to ascend back to the surface. There will always be pain and suffering, yes, but the psalmist understands his situation will not always be this difficult. The severity, or the pure white-hot pain of the pain, will ease up. His loss will always be there. There is no disappearing the pain of the loss of what has now disappeared. But the severity of the pain will end, the downward spiral will end, the dark night of the soul will end. The pain will not evaporate, but it will become more manageable. This is what hope actually looks like: it is the choice to push forward to better times, knowing the better times are not painless or perfect but nonetheless progress. 

Application: Look at how the psalmist arrives at this hope: he talks to himself. He talks at his soul, in the second-person tense. By addressing himself in the second-person, he puts some psychological distance between himself and his situation. After all, I find it difficult to give advice to myself, but I know how to give advice to someone else. This is all the distance God needs to work. God moves into the distance between “Why am I suffering?” and “Why are you, my soul, suffering?” and gets to work. God can use the distance created by my choice to give counsel back to myself, as if I were the friend who needed the wisdom only I can offer. 

Prayer:  

Holy One, the space you need to work is the

    space between me and the person beside me.

 You know when the person needs to be my very self,

    So that I am the friend I would consider it an honor to counsel.  

You know I am far better at showing compassion to others

    Than to myself,

    So make myself the recipient of the compassion you would show through me. 

Holy One, you made my soul your living room, 

  So when I talk to my soul, I know I am talking to you.

Soul, you will be okay.

Soul, you are loved.  

Soul, your cup overflows.  

Soul, you are given all the time you need.  

Soul, God never left  

Soul, no one regrets hope. 

Holy One, you enter the space between me

    And the me I’m talking to when I’m talking to me.

    That is all the distance you require to save my life.

Holy One, grant me the courage to accept the wisdom

    And love

    And comfort

    I would offer back to my own soul.