Psalm 6

I’m no good to you dead, am I?

    I can’t sing in your choir if I’m buried in some tomb!  Psalm 6 ~ The Message

When reading the psalms, you quickly get the impression that the world is not right.  The psalmist will not stand idly by or indulge in self-denial.  And because that is usually what we've been taught to do, the psalms can rub us the wrong way.  I was taught growing up to not make a scene and often times given the implicit message that complaining does no good.  It was okay to grumble and grouse for a few moments in polite company, but if you carried on too long you would not win friends and influence people.  So, push down the grief, don't throw yourself a pity party, pick yourself up and use some cliche like, "Well, life is not easy."  As though the act of saying those compact cliches would in some strange way easy the pain. 

It rarely did...or does.

Rather, what often happens is it pushes the pain down to another time.  As the frustration of a situation at work, in our families, or our friend's words that struck too close to home for comfort simmer inside us, we try to keep on keeping on.  Until...

Until that store clerk says it is policy to only give in-store credit.  Or the person cuts us off in traffic.  Or we start yelling at the football player on the screen.  We use these moments to "let off some steam."  

The psalmist want to call a spade a spade, even if it makes us feel uncomfortable.  I mean...can you really say something like that to God?? In Psalm 6, the psalmist describes her situation as dire.  The world has left her hurting in ways too numerous to list.  And the psalmist says essentially what we all think,, how can a good and loving God allow that to happen?  It is the question of suffering.  It is really the question of how faith intersects life.  The psalmist goes on to talk about tears soaking his pillow at night, swimming among the grief.  Then, a very abrupt ending about enemies fleeing.

Psalm 6 doesn't answer the question of suffering and certainly does not give us some neat, tidy theological answer that "Well, it's God's plan."  Sometimes, I think rather than answering people's questions about suffering, the church can be better about helping people describe (in the most honest and heartfelt way) why they are suffering.  What do they think about suffering?  What do they experience as the problem and the possible solutions? 

While there are days I would rather have the neat, tidy answers, I wonder if that too is not another way of suppressing the pain, trying to live in denial rather than the reality of God's realm?  We live in the messy middle of life, where we get glimpses of God's realm (and grace) but it is not our permanent residence.  Instead, there are moments when the shadows creep and the tears flow and the pain aches.  The psalms acknowledge those moments and that truth.  And I wonder if the church needs to find ways to do the same today.  It would be different...difficult.  But I also trust in the wisdom of the psalms that often to do so might help us find a trace of God's grace after being honest about the suffering around us.

May you this day find your voice to offer to God the heartache that dwells within.  And may your heart be strangely warmed by the trace of God's grace as you do so.

Blessings ~