Psalm 42

Over the last week, I have read and re-read Psalm 42.  

What I noticed most is the wonderful tension that is woven into this psalm.  What I hear in these words is the writer struggling and trying to make sense of why it is that she feels so lousy given the goodness of God.  Why does he long for God when just on Sunday (or Friday night given this was written by a Jewish person for the Sabbath) he went skipping and singing into the temple?

We have a shortcut for asking these sorts of profound, deep, almost unanswerable questions today.  Simply put we ask, "Why me?"  A shopping cart rams into our car in the grocery store parking lot and we ask, "why me?"  Our boss piles more and more work upon our already overflowing, messy desk and we ask, "why me?"   The dentist utters the phrase "root canal" and we ask, "why me?"

And here is the point we can't stress enough: it is an appropriate question!  It is a biblical question!  The psalmist doesn't feel bad for asking the question.  She doesn't get caught up in a cycle of guilt that maybe she shouldn't be talking to God like that. 

The tension comes not from guilt, but from trying to resolve two conflicting claims as people of faith we try to hold together: God is good and suffering happens within our life.  Tom Long calls this the "impossible chess match."  The psalmist does not resolve the chess match.  Put another way, suffering's king is not defeated within the words of the psalmist.  But I think there is incredible value within our prayers to name that tension and how I experience that tension in my life. 

The psalmist ends with prayerful hope, that one day she will sing again, even if people ask her, "Where is her God?"  The psalmist knows God is present, knows God love even in the midst of difficult moments, and it leads her to deeper prayer.

May it do so for us and may we notice traces of God's grace in our midst in the coming days!

Blessings and peace on these warm summer days!