Eternal home

Amidst life’s chaos, we naturally want clear answers—a simple way to label everything in B&W. God has never offered us such clarity. He invites us, instead, to live within the mystery and the majesty of who he is.

A prayer of Moses, the man of God.

¹ Lord, you’ve been our true home
from time immemorial.
² Before the mountains were born—
before you formed the earth
and gave birth to the world—
from endless age to endless age
you are God.[1]

³ You turn human beings back to dust
saying: “Turn back, mortals!”
⁴ A thousand years
are to you like a day—
like yesterday, already gone—
or a few hours in the night.
⁵ You sweep people away like a dream.
We’re like grass that sprouts in the morning:
⁶ it sprouts and blossoms in the morning
but is withered and dead by evening.
⁷ We’re consumed by your wrath
overwhelmed by your fury.
⁸ You set our sins out before you
our secret sins in the glare of your gaze.
⁹ Thus, our days slip away under your wrath
till we end our years with a sigh.
¹⁰ Our lifespan is just seventy years
or eighty if our strength holds out.
Yet at best it’s a lot of toil and trouble
which pass all too quickly
before our time is up and we’re gone.

¹¹ Who among us knows
the ferocity of your anger
and has reverence corresponding to it?
¹² Teach us to live one day at a time—
fully alive to you—
our hearts intent on your wisdom.

¹³ Turn back, Yahveh!
How long will your anger last?
Have pity on your servants.
¹⁴ Flood our lives
with your unfailing love every morning
so we may sing for joy for the rest of our lives.
¹⁵ Give us good times
for as many years as you’ve given us bad—
joy equal to our pain.
¹⁶ Show your servants what you can do for them
letting their children glimpse your glory.
¹⁷ And may the Lord our God grant us his favor
and give lasting value to all we do—
so that everything we do endures.

Moses found leading the rebellious Israelites through the wilderness for forty years extremely hard, but through it he came to know God like none of his contemporaries. And Moses lived before the Israelites had a homeland, holy city, temple or monarchy. When all they had was God.[2]

Moses anchors all he says here in the eternal God, his people’s true home. Then he addresses our biggest challenges—namely, life’s combined hardships, uncertainty, and brevity, our sins and God’s anger over them. That may seem depressing, but Moses is just facing the fact that all our walls are paper-thin.

Verses 11-12 give us Moses’ key to flourishing in life, despite its many challenges: we must learn to live wisely, reverently, mindful of God’s intolerance of evil, fully alive each day to the God who is our home.

Moses concludes asking God for an end to God’s anger and for his unfailing love to replace his people’s misery with joyful song, He wants gladness equal to the prolonged discipline they’ve endured, blessing so obvious their kids will see God’s splendor in it and God’s favor to crown all his people do with lasting success. If sin and death are constants, Moses reserves the last word for God’s forgiveness and fullness of life.

I love that you’re my true home, Lord. Help me live one day at a time, reverently, alive to your constant presence. Help me believe you want joy to fill my life more than I do. Help me let go of the past and entrust my future to you. And in all I do today, grant me lasting success. Amen.

During your free moments today, pray this prayer:

Teach us to live one day at a time—
fully alive to you—
our hearts intent on your wisdom.

[1] Verses 1-2’s chiastic structure—God, time, space (mountains), space (earth and world), time, God—emphasizes that time and space are fully encompassed by our eternal God.

[2] What makes that significant is that this psalm opens Book IV, Book III having so often focused on all the Israelites lost in the exile.

Book IV is comprised of Psalms 90 through 106. Many of these psalms may be seen as answering the anguished cry of Psa. 89:49, which asks God what became of his faithful promises to David.  In Jerusalem’s fall and the death or exile of its royal family members, the Davidic covenant had apparently come to nothing. Thus, Book IV redirects our attention from the failed Davidic monarchy and covenant to Yahveh’s kingship and the Mosaic covenant. It refers to Moses a total of 7 times and to Aaron multiple times as well,  in order to take the reader back to Israel’s beginning. God was Israel’s refuge long before David became king and continues to protect Israel though the monarchy is gone. It also proclaims the blessedness of all who trust in God.

Book IV is dominated by its enthronement psalms (Psa. 93, 96, 97, 98, 99, and Psa. 94 implicitly) likely used in an annual festival celebrating God’s rule over the nations after the Israelites’ return from exile. Like Book IV as a whole, these psalms respond to Psa. 89 by calling God’s people back to their first commitment, of serving God alone as king. Interestingly, the New Testament has it both ways since Jesus reigns as both David’s greater son and God incarnate.

Where’s your unfailing love, Lord?

The Psalms are full of praise for God. But what difference does God’s faithfulness make when he’s conspicuous by his absence in the real world and we fear we’re just mouthing empty platitudes to numb the pain?

An Ethan the Ezrahite psalm.

¹ I will sing of Yahveh’s acts of love forever.
I will proclaim your faithfulness
to every generation.
² I will declare that
your unfailing love will last forever
your faithfulness being firmly established
in the heavens.

³ “I’ve sealed a covenant with my chosen one
and sworn to my servant David:
⁴ ‘I will ensure that your dynasty endures forever
and make your throne stand strong for all time.’”

⁵ All of heaven
applauds the wonder, Yahveh.
The assembly of holy ones
celebrates your faithfulness.
⁶ For who in heaven
can compare with Yahveh?
Which of the heavenly beings
is like Yahveh?
⁷ A God inspiring awe
in the council of the holy ones—
far more immense and intimidating
than anyone around him.
⁸ Who is like you,
Yahveh, God of Angel Armies
Yahveh, almighty and utterly faithful?
⁹ You rule over the surging of the sea:
when its waves run wild
you subdue them.
¹⁰ It was you who crushed Rahab[1]
like a corpse.
You scattered your enemies
with a single blow.
¹¹ The heavens are yours
the earth is yours too.
You made the world and everything in it.
¹² You created the north and the south—
made Tabor and Hermon[2]
sing your praise joyfully.

¹³ Strong is your arm
mighty your hand
your right hand raised in triumph!
¹⁴ You’ve built your throne
on righteousness and justice
appointed Grace and Truth
as court attendants.
¹⁵ How blessed the people
who know the triumphant shout, Yahveh[3]
and walk in the light of your gaze!
¹⁶ All day long they rejoice
in knowing who you are
your saving justice having raised them up.
¹⁷ For you are the glory of their strength
and we triumph because you delight in us.
¹⁸ For our shield belongs to Yahveh
our king to the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁹ You spoke in a vision then
to your faithful servants, saying:
“I placed a mere youth above warriors
raised up one I chose from among the people.
²⁰ I found David my servant
and anointed him with my holy oil.
²¹ My strength will always support him
and my powerful arm make him strong.
²² No enemy will outwit him
and no evildoer best him.
²³ I’ll crush his foes before him
and strike down those who hate him.
²⁴ My faithfulness and unfailing love
will be with him
making him triumph in my name.
²⁵ I’ll extend his dominion to the sea
and his sovereignty to the rivers.
²⁶ He’ll call me, ‘My father
my God, my rock of rescue.’
²⁷ I’ll make him my firstborn
high king over all the kings of the earth.
²⁸ My unfailing love will preserve him forever
and my covenant commitment to him
will stay firm.
²⁹ I’ll make his dynasty last forever
his throne as long as the heavens endure.
³⁰ But if his descendants abandon my teaching
and don’t abide by my rulings—
³¹ if they profane my laws
and don’t keep my commands—
³² I’ll punish their crime with a rod
and their waywardness with plagues.
³³ But I’ll never withhold
my unfailing love from him
or fail to be faithful.
³⁴ I won’t profane my covenant
or take back a single thing I said.
³⁵ I’ve sworn once and for all in my holiness
I will never break faith with David.
³⁶ His dynasty will last forever
his throne like the sun before me.
³⁷ It will endure forever like the moon
that faithful witness in the sky.”[4]

³⁸ But you—you’ve rejected, disowned
and raged at the one you anointed.
³⁹ You’ve revoked your covenant
with your servant
and profaned his crown to the ground.
⁴⁰ You’ve breached all his defenses
and reduced his strongholds to rubble
⁴¹ so that every passer-by plunders him
and he’s become the scorn of his neighbors.
⁴² You’ve empowered his enemies against him
to their joy and delight.
⁴³ You’ve made his sword useless
and withdrawn your support in battle.
⁴⁴ You’ve brought his splendor
to a sudden end
and hurled his throne to the ground.
⁴⁵ You’ve made him old before his time
and shrouded him in shame.

⁴⁶ How long, Yahveh
will you hide yourself?
Will your anger smolder like fire forever?
⁴⁷ Remember the brevity of my lifespan—
how ephemeral this human life is!
⁴⁸ What mortal can avoid death
and escape the pull of the grave forever?
⁴⁹ Where are the loving acts
you showed in the past, Lord
that you faithfully swore to David?
⁵⁰ Remember, Lord
the abuse flung at your servants
the insults of the world we have to bear—
⁵¹ the way your enemies have reviled, Yahveh
reviled your anointed one’s every step.

⁵² Blessed be Yahveh forever!
Amen and amen.

This psalm’s first 37 verses praise God for keeping his promise that David’s dynasty—actualizing God’s rule over the earth—would endure forever.[5] No Israelite could have asked for a sweeter opening, but the psalm doesn’t end there. Beginning in verse 38, it describes a crisis that contradicts everything it’s just said. Instead of trustworthy, God is shown to be fickle. It’s like he’s passed David a bad cheque of monumental proportions. Besides being unreliable, God is savagely destructive too, rendering all of Ethan’s earlier high praise a bad joke.

The psalm ends by putting a series of questions and a single request to God. Evoking our pity, the anguished questions culminate in asking God where his unfailing love for David has gone. Ethan’s request asks God to remember Israel’s deep humiliation.

Thus, the psalm gives us Jerusalem’s ruin without its restoration, the felling of David’s tree without its rebudding—like Christ’s passion without Easter Sunday. It’s as if God is telling us not to deny reality to make him look good and saying that faith must learn to wait without knowing how things will turn out. So the Psalms’ third book leaves us in pain, asking how can God really be gracious and truthful when he’s trashed his covenant with David, but also reminding us that honest doubt is no enemy of faith.[6]

How can I believe you keep your Word, Lord, when my world goes sideways and you don’t take my calls? Help me to pray honestly even when your promises feel like junk bonds. Help me to go on trusting that, however dark the day before Easter is for me, good will yet have the final word. Amen.

In your free moments today, meditate on these words:

Where are the loving acts you showed in the past, Lord
that you promised so faithfully to David?

[1] A sea monster referring figuratively to Egypt as an existential threat to Israel.

[2] Mount Hermon and Mount Tabor are Israel’s two biggest geological features, respectively located in the far north, and central regions.

[3] This shout can be either a war cry or a festal shout. Perhaps here it refers to both since each implies the other, the battle’s outcome being assured in advance.

[4] The idea that God has built the Davidic monarchy into the structure of the cosmic order (vv. 36-37) may reasonably suggest that the Davidic Messiah to come is far more than a mere man.

[5] The story is told in 1 Sam. 16; see also 2 Sam. 7.

[6] Verse 52’s doxology ends not the psalm, but rather the Psalms’ third book.

Dark night of the soul

What do we do when God ignores our most urgent prayers and we feel utterly abandoned? This is the psalm to pray when life is unlivable and God is nowhere to be found, his absence being our real problem.

A Korahite psalm of Heman the Ezrahite.

¹ Yahveh, the God who rescues me
I cry out to you day and night.
² Listen to my prayer
turn your ear to my cry.
³ For I’ve had more than my fill of troubles
which have now driven me to death’s door.
⁴ People consider me as good as dead
utterly devoid of strength.
⁵ It’s like I’ve been carried early to the morgue
or killed and thrown in an unmarked grave—
like you no longer remember me
and have cut me off from your care.
⁶ You’ve hurled me
to the bottom of the underworld
into a lifeless, pitch-black void.[1]
⁷ Your wrath is crushing the life out of me
as your breakers pummel and pound me.
⁸ Having made my friends abhor and shun me
you’ve driven them all away from me.
I’ve been made a captive
with no way to escape.

⁹ My eyes have grown dim with grief
as I call on you all day long, Yahveh
stretching my hands out to you.
¹⁰ Do you perform miracles for the dead?
Do their specters rise up and praise you?
¹¹ Do they celebrate
your unfailing love in the grave
or appreciate your faithfulness in the abyss?
¹² Are your miracles acknowledged
by those you’ve exiled to the dark—
or your saving justice remembered
by those you’ve cast into oblivion? 

¹³ But me, I’m still crying to you, Yahveh
bringing my prayer before you every morning.
¹⁴ Why do you reject me, Yahveh
turning your face away from me?
¹⁵ Wretched and close to death
ever since my youth
I’ve endured your terrors
to the point of utter exhaustion.
¹⁶ Your anger has overwhelmed me
your terrors have paralyzed me.
¹⁷ Surging around me like water all day long
they’ve completely engulfed me.
¹⁸ You’ve deprived me
of all my friends and loved ones
leaving darkness is my only friend.

Darkness pervades this entire psalm. In fact, it’s the only lament in the psalter that doesn’t at some point turn toward confidence or hope. But the very fact that Heman prays to Yahveh as “the God who rescues him” makes his prayer an act of faith and hope.

This psalm gives us three wonderful gifts: a model for coupling patient waiting with impatient praying, words to articulate our deepest pain and grief to God, and a license to do so without the least positive spin or cosmetic touch-up. Heman holds God alone responsible for his suffering. And knowing well what Heman thinks, God doesn’t want him to pretend otherwise out of politeness. Prayer helps us only as we truly open our hearts to him. He’s big enough to handle our honesty, however bitter.

Alluding to Israel’s captivity in Egypt, Heman speaks of his misery in captivity without any of God’s miracles and unfailing love. Clearly, God is no quick fix. Friendless, yet God-haunted, he suffers the very terrors God inflicts on God’s enemies. But despite Heman’s bluntness, he doesn’t stop praying—perhaps because he has nowhere else to turn. Though he ends his complaint in the dark, he holds onto God, earnestly hoping God will end his alienation and anguish.

Abandoned by all your friends, Jesus, you remained faithful when your alienation culminated in the anguish and scandal of the cross. Even God-forsaken, you prayed, “My God, my God!” Help me to follow you in whatever suffering you call me to bear, for your name’s sake. Amen.

In your free moments today, pray these words:

Yahveh, the God who rescues me
I cry out to you by day and by night.

[1] In the psalmist’s day, the afterlife, Sheol, viewed as a dark place of which little was known beyond the fact that it was totally lacking both God’s care for people and their ability to experience and respond to stimuli of any kind.

[2] The psalmist may wrestle with chronic illness, but his poetic language could describe a whole range of dire situations beyond illness, which allows his prayer to speak for many more of us than just the chronically ill.