Lessons I'm Learning: Psalms of Life

The Lesson: My boyfriend (Ryan) and I have been reading through one of the Psalms together each week for the past few months. Every week, a common theme runs through my head—the Psalms are so much like real life!

 We see that David’s life, especially in his mind and spirit, was not an easy one. He has much to say about how his enemies surround him and he feels like God has abandoned him. He was often discouraged. In fact, if David and I were Facebook friends today, he might have had a slew of those posts that I tend to just scroll past and think, Dude, l know your life feels hard and all, but can you stop complaining about it already?  Yet, other times I think I might come across this amazing poem he wrote about how powerful and loving God is, or how beautiful nature is if you just stop and look at it, or about the marvelous phenomena of childbirth. Those days I might stop scrolling for a moment and think, Wow, David. You really get it. Thanks for the moment of inspiration and the encouragement toward worship of God.

Then I think about my own life, my Facebook posts, my text messages, my chats with my mom, and my occasional journal entry. Suddenly, I start to sound a whole lot more like David. I am perfectly capable of complaining, expressing frustration, and walking (or dragging myself) through hard times. Then there are the other days, when I cannot help but just stop and marvel at how amazing God and His creation are, and thank Him for the plans he laid out for my life before time began.

Lament and love. Whining and worship. Sadness and surprise. This is the stuff that real life is made up of.

Reading Psalms has really pushed me in one particular area: coming back to how great God is, and praising Him even when I don’t feel like it. Here’s an example, and then I will explain what I mean:

Psalm 13 (NIV)

For the director of music. A psalm of David.

¹ How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
² How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
    and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
    How long will my enemy triumph over me?

³ Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
    Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
⁴ and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
    and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

⁵ But I trust in your unfailing love;
    my heart rejoices in your salvation.
⁶ I will sing the Lord’s praise,
    for he has been good to me.

We see that David’s life feels pretty rough at the beginning of this psalm. He’s even accusing God of forgetting him forever. (And FOREVER is a really long time!) In the middle, David asks for an answer, trusting one will come. Finally, he expresses praise and trust in God, looking back to how God has been faithful in the past, and hoping for His faithfulness to hold true once again.

The challenge: I’m challenging myself to pray and think more like David did. Will you join me? Like David, we can tell God just how much life stinks and how much it feels like He’s forgotten us down here on planet earth. But DON’T STOP THERE! Ask God to answer, and praise Him even in the midst of the struggle. Look for His past faithfulness, and ask Him to demonstrate Himself once again in our lives. Ask God to bring Himself glory by working through us. Let’s look past the moment of hardship and trial to the eternally good and great God who promises to never let us out of the palm of His hand. Let’s pray big, bold prayers. Let’s praise God no matter what. You never know what might happen!