Part of what I love about the Psalms in the Old Testament is the way in which they run the entire gamut of human emotions. Granted, we tend to give more attention to the psalms that are comforting and cheerful in spirit: “The Lord is my shepherd…” or “Make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth…” or “Enter the gates of the lord with thanksgiving, and enter the courts of the lord with praise.” Those tend to be the psalms that we choose to memorize.
But as one moves throughout the Psalter, it becomes very clear that the Psalmist is no stranger to the darker moods of the human condition. Sometimes one finds the psalmist angry—angry at God and angry at other people. Sometimes one finds the psalmist a bit sarcastic and cynical. And sometimes one finds the psalmist heartbroken and weeping:
“As a deer longs for flowing streams,” are the words of the 42nd Psalm, “so longs my soul after you, O God.”
Don’t sentimentalize the imagery of that. In a time of severe drought, the sight of a deer desperately panting for water is not a pretty sight. A thirsty, panting deer is not far from complete dehydration and death.
Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever felt so depleted by the circumstances around you, so spiritually dehydrated by your grief or your pain, that it felt as though you were panting, spiritually speaking, desperately panting for the refreshing water of God’s presence that seemed to be nowhere to be found. That is the kind of condition that the psalmist calls to mind with this imagery. It is not a cheerful condition. It is a condition of severe spiritual thirst. I’m convinced that many of you know what that condition feels like.
“My tears have been my food day and night,” the psalmist continues in Psalm 42, “while people say to me continually, ‘Where is your God?’”
Have you ever cried yourself to sleep over a broken heart that you are reluctant to reveal in the light of day? Have you ever done so much crying that the tears ran down your cheeks and across your lips so that you could taste their saltiness as they became your food for the day?
This is the emotional condition of the psalmist in the 42nd Psalm. He does not tell us about the specific circumstances that are causing his grief. Had he lost a loved one? Were his family members suffering? Had he come down with a severe illness? Had an enemy taken over his land and destroyed the spirit of his people? We don’t know. And we don’t have to know, do we? Perhaps the particulars concerning the circumstances are not what’s important here. What is important is that, in Psalm 42, the psalmist does not feel as though he is being cared for by a loving shepherd who makes him to lie down in green pastures and who leads him beside the still waters. That is a different psalm and a different mood. In Psalm 42, we find a psalmist who feels broken and desperate and strangely disconnected from the presence of God.
So, what does the psalmist do? How does he manage his grief and despair? Quite simply, he thinks back. He remembers. He spends time calling to memory the faithfulness of God in the past:
“These things I remember”, writes the psalmist in the fourth verse of the 42nd Psalm. “These things I remember as I pour out my soul.”
He goes on to talk about the memory of more joyful days of worship in the temple, when the entire multitude of people joined together in songs of salvation. He then goes on to talk about places in which he had apparently encountered the presence of God in powerful and life-changing ways: One of those places is the River Jordan, where Jesus himself would eventually be baptized. Another one of those places is the Hermon Mountains, tall peaks where perhaps the Psalmist had a vision of God’s sovereignty and majesty. Still another one of those places is Mount Mizar (Mizar is a word that literally means little mountain), a relatively small hill where perhaps the Psalmist experienced God’s comforting grace during a time of extended prayer. “These things I remember,” writes the psalmist. “These things I remember.”
When confronted with a season of pain and suffering, what is it that the psalmist does? He spends time remembering. More specifically, he spends time remembering those transformational glimpses of God have been given to him throughout his life, those revelatory encounters with God that filled him with a life-altering awareness of God’s presence and God’s power and God’s goodness. The grieving psalmist deals with his present suffering by turning to God’s faithfulness in the past, not for the purpose of dwelling on the good old days, but for the purpose of regaining a vision of a God who is greater than his suffering and who still deserves to be praised.
It is a scripture that reminds us that, when we are confronted with pain and suffering, our memory is important. Because, through our memory, we can join the psalmist in remembering what God has done in the past, thereby regaining our sense of conviction that that same God is holding us in the present and carrying us forward into a redemptive future.
One of the most important purposes of the church’s ministry is precisely this: the church’s ministry helps its people to remember. When we gather to sing the hymns of faith, what are we doing? We are helping one another to remember the majesty of a God who deserves nothing less than our most vibrant songs of praise. When we read from the scriptures that have been in existence for thousands of years, what are we doing? We are helping one another to remember the story of the things that God has done throughout history. When we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, this meal that Jesus instituted on the night when he gave himself up for us, what are we doing? We are helping one another to remember the life, death, and resurrection of the One in whose grace we are set free and by whose name we are saved.
In a notoriously forgetful world, one of the most important purposes of the church’s ministry is to help its people to remember, so that, like the psalmist, we might be able to say even in seasons of hardship, “These things I remember. These things I remember.”
In your personal walk with Christ, what are the things that help you to remember your most significant encounters with God? What are the things that help you to remember that day when you first came to Christ? That day When you first experienced God’s healing? That day When you first found yourself making different decisions because of the transformation that the Holy Spirit had brought about within you?
Over the last couple of months, I have begun keeping a photograph on the nightstand beside my bed. The photograph was taken on a Sunday morning in the late summer of 1989 (20 years ago). It is a photograph of the very first baptism at which I ever officiated as a pastor. I’ve officiated at hundreds of baptisms since this day, but this was the first.
I was so excited. Back then my sense of God’s calling upon my life was fresh and powerful. I felt as though I had been equipped with a vision and a vocation and a purpose that would carry me through anything. On that day, when I held that baby in my arms, tears of joy ran down my face. As a 23-year-old, I sensed that I was right smack dab in the middle of where God wanted me to be.
And so I keep the photograph on my nightstand these days, and I look at it every morning when I wake up. Why do I do that? Quite simply, I do it to remember. I do it to remember the excitement of that day. I do it to remember that the God who called me to ministry that day is still calling me to ministry 20 years later.
That kind of remembrance is important to me. That kind of remembrance is sometimes what sustains me when I find myself frustrated with ministry. On those days when I feel spiritually dehydrated (like a deer panting for streams of water); on those days when I feel that I am not effective enough as a pastor; on those days when I’m heartbroken by my own behavior or the disordered priorities of the church’s people, this simple photograph has a way of helping me to remember that it’s all about Jesus and that the journey is still very much worth the investment.
What are the things that help you to remember the Lordship of Jesus over your life? What are the things that help you to remember what that Lordship has meant to you over the years?
Those, I think, are important questions. Because, as the psalmist helps us to understand, sometimes our remembrance of how God has been with us in the past is the key to managing the heartache that we experience in the present so that we might be able to approach the future with a sense of holy hope.