No Pit Is Too Deep for God’s Presence
The opening words of Psalm 130 seem to crawl out of the soul of one who is drowning in agony, hopelessness, and despair: “Out of the depths, I cry to You, O Lord.”
The cry of Psalm 130 matches what Ginger Zee confides about her struggle with depression: “Depression, for me, has been a couple of different things—but the first time I felt it, I felt helpless, hopeless, and things I had never felt before. I lost myself and my will to live.”
“Out of the depths I cry to You, O Lord. O Lord, hear my voice. Let Your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.”
Depression can sneak up on us from various directions. Verses 3-4 suggest that it may have been guilt that provoked depression in the heart of this psalmist, but no matter what the source may be, the devastation it brings can be debilitating. (It may be vital for a person to seek professional help when one’s soul is being pummeled by depression.)
One of the great things about Psalm 130 is that it invites us to pour out to God whatever frustration, agony, or depression may be wallowing in our souls. In his assessment of this psalm, Eugene Peterson writes, “By setting the anguish out in the open and voicing it as a prayer, the psalm gives dignity to our suffering. It does not look on suffering as something slightly embarrassing which must be hushed up and locked in a closet (where it finally becomes a skeleton) because this sort of thing shouldn’t happen to a real person of faith. And it doesn’t treat it as a puzzle that must be explained, and therefore turn it over to theologians or philosophers to work out an answer. Suffering is set squarely, openly, passionately before God. It is acknowledged and expressed. It is described and lived.” (A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, p. 134)
Psalm 130 is a lament (“a passionate expression of grief or sorrow”), and, because God cares deeply for us, God pays careful attention to our laments. In his book Bounce: Learning to Thrive through Loss, Tragedy, and Heartache. Aaron Fruh shares, “When my son, Nathan, was five years old, my wife and I were drinking coffee in the living room early one morning when we heard a cry coming from his bedroom. When Sharon went into his room, she screamed out to me because Nathan was having a seizure. She came running down the hall carrying the twitching and flailing body with his little brown eyes rolled back in their sockets. I ran into the kitchen to call 911, slid across the kitchen tile, and scraped my knee. The ambulance took my son to a children’s hospital, and I slept next to him in his room for the next five days while the pediatric neurologists treated him.
“When he had his seizure, Nathan was afraid…so he cried out for his mother and father. It was a lament, a complaint: ‘Help me! Something isn’t right! Come quick! I’m afraid!’ And what did I do as a father? I ran across the kitchen floor and skinned my knee. In the hospital I drew closer to my son in his distress. That’s what a father does because of the covenant bond he has with his child. A lament is a form of speech that releases us, even encourages us to complain about injustice and call on God to hear our cries of suffering. And what does our Father in heaven do when we raise a lament His way? He runs across the kitchen floor and skins His knee.”
Not only does Psalm 130 free us to pour out our lament to God, it also invites us to lean toward God in our troubles. Verses 5-6 tell us, “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I put my hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.”
The Hebrew word for watchman is tsaphah. Literally the word has to do with leaning forward to peer into the distance. Historically watchmen were appointed to keep vigil upon the city walls throughout the night. The watchmen would lean forward at their post, peering into the darkness, watching for any sign of danger, and waiting for the sun to rise in the east. They could do nothing to hasten the rising of the sun, but they leaned forward, looking ahead to the arrival of a new day that would relieve the darkness.
Psalm 130 begins with a cry from the depths. Verse 7, near the end of the psalm, gives us the affirmation that God’s love is unfailing, reaching all the way to the depths and beyond: “O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with Him is full redemption.”
The depths are agonizing, but we never face them alone. God’s unfailing love meets us even in the depths. Corrie ten Boom, who lived in the depths of a German prison camp during World War II stressed, “There is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still.”
Death is but the Route from Earth to Heaven
His son said to him, “No, no, Father. You are dreaming.”
“No,” said Moody. “I am not dreaming. I have been within the gates. I have seen the children’s faces.”
A short time later he spoke again, “This is my triumph. This is my coronation day. It is glorious.”
When the time comes for each of us to die, will death be dreaded or welcomed?
Many believers in the city of Corinth seemed to be afraid of death. They feared that there was nothing more to look forward to when death should call their name. But Paul spends 58 verses in 1 Corinthians 15 establishing the argument that Jesus rose from the dead and that we will, too.
One of the great messages Paul shares with us in these verses is that death is but the means by which we make the vital transition from a world of pain and suffering and sin to a world of glory.
In verse 50, Paul writes, “What I am saying, brothers and sister, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.”
The word translated here as “perishable” is the Greek word phthora. It has to do with decay, corruption, ruin. Phthora is the root word in the disease diptheria, which is a deadly disease caused by a bacterium (Corynebacterium diphtheria) that produces a toxin causing inflammation of the heart and nervous system.
Paul applies phthora to us, implicating not only that our bodies are prone to die but that there is sickness, brokenness and corruption that fills us and fills this world. Such sickness, brokenness and corruption do not fit in heaven. These things must be left behind on earth and not be carried into heaven. Death is the means by which sickness, brokenness and corruption are left behind on earth so that we can enter the glory of heaven unencumbered.
Max Lucado offers a helpful illustration of this in his book He Still Moves Stones: “As a young boy I had two great loves – playing and eating. Summers were made for afternoons on the baseball diamond and meals at Mom’s dinner table. Mom had a rule, however. Dirty, sweaty boys could never eat at the table. Her first words to us as we came home were always, ‘Go clean up and take off those clothes if you want to eat.’
“Now no boy is fond of bathing and dressing, but I never once complained and defied my mom by saying, ‘I’d rather stink than eat!’ In my economy a bath and a clean shirt were a small price to pay for a good meal.
“And from God’s perspective death is a small price to pay for the privilege of sitting at his table. ‘Flesh and blood cannot have a part in the kingdom of God…. This body that can be destroyed must clothe itself with something that can never be destroyed. And this body that dies must clothe itself with something that can never die’ (1 Corinthians 15:50, 53, emphasis added).
“God is even more insistent than my mom was. In order to sit at his table, a change of clothing must occur. And we must die in order for our body to be exchanged for a new one. So, from God’s viewpoint, death is not to be dreaded; it is to be welcomed….
“When we see death, we see disaster. When Jesus sees death, he sees deliverance.”
Benjamin Franklin had a similar perspective. He chose carefully the words that appear at his grave: “The body of Benjamin Franklin, Printer, like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out, stripped of its lettering and gilding, lies here, food for worms. Yet the work itself shall not be lost; for it will, as he believed, appear once more in a new and more beautiful edition, corrected and amended by the Author.”
Because of what Jesus did between the cross and the emptied tomb, death need not be feared but can be welcomed, for it is through death that we come into the glory of heaven.
We Need Not Sugarcoat our Pain
Psalm 129 is not the most uplifting of psalms. One writer remarked that she could not find a single verse in the psalm that she would want to embroider on a pillow case. Yet Psalm 129 has been given a vital place in the canon of Scripture, for Psalm 129 deals honestly with the painful reality of injustice and injury. The psalm opens with a disturbing portrayal of the suffering Israel has endured: “‘Often have they attacked me from my youth’—let Israel say—‘often have they attacked me from my youth, yet they have not prevailed against me. The plowers plowed on my back; they made their furrows long.”
Commenting on these verses in his book A Long Journey in the Same Direction, Eugene Peterson writes, “Picture Israel…lying stretched out, prone. The enemies hitch up their oxen and plows and begin cutting long furrows in the back of Israel. Long gashes cut into the skin and flesh, back and forth systematically, like a farmer working a field. Imagine the whole thing: the blood, the pain, the back-and-forth cruelty.”
Throughout their history and into the present, when Jewish worshipers make their pilgrimage to Jerusalem and sing this psalm along the way, they recall the price they have paid for their faith in God. They have been persecuted for their faith. They have been exiled for their faith. They have been oppressed for their faith. They have been killed for their faith.
Yet this psalm (with no verse that one would embroider on a pillow case) offers us consolation and hope by teaching us two key lessons:
1: We should not sugarcoat our pain or glaze over injustice.
This psalm addresses injustice as what it truly is: The infliction of cruelty and pain upon another, like plowers plowing on your back, making their furrows long. Injustice should never be ignored, excused or rationalized. It should be confronted for what it is.
German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who observed and confronted the injustices of Nazi Germany, at the cost of his own life, stated, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to act is to act.”
Elie Wiesel stresses, “We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must—at that moment—become the center of the universe.”
This psalm does not keep silent about the emotional trauma injustice thrusts upon those who are injured. Every verse in this psalm cries out over the pain of injustice.
2: Pour out to God what is in your heart. Express to God your hurt, your anger, your fear, and your resentment.
Psalm 129 is bold enough to offer an anti-blessing on those who mistreated Israel: “May all who hate Zion be put to shame and turned backward. Let them be like the grass on the housetops that withers before it grows up, with which reapers do not fill their hands or binders of sheaves their arms, while those who pass by do not say, ‘the blessing of the Lord be upon you! We bless you in the name of the Lord!’”
This is not the psalm of one who chose his words carefully in order to sound holy enough or sufficiently forgiving. This is the prayer of one who takes the pain and frustration of his heart, and simply shakes it out before God. And that’s okay. We don’t have to sanitize and deodorize our heart before approaching God. He knows what is actually in us anyway, so there is no point in dressing up our feelings in prettier clothes. The most effective prayers are the most genuine prayers. When I bring to God what is really in me, then God is able to do His good work on the real me.
Tim Stafford counsels, “Don’t deny that you are angry. God gave me my emotions, and they are good if handled properly. To pretend I don’t feel anything when someone hurts me or takes advantage of me is to live in an unreal world and to deny [the emotions] God has given. The Bible says, ‘In your anger do not sin’ (Ephesians 4:26), so it must be possible to be angry without going against God…. People end up with ulcers because they pretend nothing is bothering them and bottle up angry feelings. If I admit I feel angry, it releases the pressure.” (Unhappy Secrets of the Christian Life, p.85-86)
In the crying out, relief is found.
Church: The Place to go when we Need One Another
Thus, Paul challenges them, in 1st Corinthians 14:33, “God is a God not of disorder but of peace.”
Most American churches face a different problem today. Our problem is that we live in culture that expects to be entertained, and if we are not adequately entertained, we complain. Over the years, I have heard many people complain that worship was not satisfying to them because they did not get anything out of the sermon, or out of the music. I have never in my life heard anyone complain that church wasn’t very good today because I didn’t do anything to encourage or comfort and help my brothers or sisters.
An old African folktale tells of a tribal chief who sent messengers to all the men of his tribe, inviting them to a great feast. “All of the food will be provided,” the messengers promised, “but each man is to bring a jug of palm wine to share.”
Ezra wanted to attend the great festival, but he had no wine. He paced the floor, trying to figure out what he could do. His wife suggested, “You could buy a jug of wine; it is not too expensive for such a great occasion.”
“How foolish!” replied Ezra. “I don’t want to spend my money; I want to find a way to go for free.”
Ezra continued to pace the floor until he came up with a plan. “Rather than wine, I will carry water in my jug. Several hundred men will attend the festival. What will it hurt to add one jug of water to the great pot of wine?”
On the day of the feast, the tribal drums began to beat early in the morning, summoning people to the great festival. By midmorning, all of the men had gathered at the home of the chief. As each man entered, he poured his jug of wine into a large earthen pot. Ezra, too, emptied the contents of his container into the pot, greeted the chief, and joined the dancers.
When all of the guests had arrived, the chief commanded the music to stop and ordered the servants to fill everyone’s glass with wine. As the chief spoke the opening words of the festival, all of the guests raised their glasses and drank. Suddenly a cry of disbelief arose from the crowd. What they had tasted was not wine, but water. Each guest had come to the festival with the same mindset of Ezra, wanting to get without having to give.
Sadly, that’s the mindset in many churches today. Many people want to get what they can out of church without contributing toward the care of their brothers and sisters.
In 1st Corinthians 14:26, Paul challenges us, “What should be done then, my friends? When you come together each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.”
We ought to be able to look at church and at worship as the place for us to go when we need each other and where we meet each other’s needs.
In his book Church: Why Bother?, Philip Yancey shares, “According to historian Ernest Kurtz, Alcoholics Anonymous came out of a discovery Bill Wilson made in his first meeting with Dr. Bob Smith. On his own, Bill had stayed sober for six months until he made a trip out of town where a business deal fell through. Depressed, wandering a hotel lobby, he heard familiar sounds of laughter and of ice tinkling in glasses. He headed toward the bar, thinking ‘I need a drink.’
“Suddenly a brand-new thought came to him, stopping him in his tracks: ‘No, I don’t need a drink—I need another alcoholic!’ Walking instead toward the lobby telephones, he began the sequence of calls that put him in touch with Dr. Smith, who would become AA’s cofounder.
“Church is a place where I can say, unashamedly, ‘I don’t need to sin. I need another sinner.’ Perhaps together we can keep each other accountable, on the path.’” (pp. 51-52)
Church is the place to go when we need each other, and where we can meet each other’s needs.
The “Blessed” Life
Psalm 128 is a psalm of blessing. The word “blessed” appears four times in the six verses of this short psalm: “Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in his ways” (verse 1), “blessings and prosperity will be yours” (verse 2), “Thus is the man blessed who fears the Lord” (verse 4), and “May the Lord bless you from Zion all the days of your life” (verse 5).
The Hebrew word translated into English as “blessed” is ashar, which means, literally, to go straight or to be set right. It takes on the implication of blessedness (or “happiness” in some translations) in the sense that going straight or being set right brings contentment to our lives.
Chaim Bentorah offers this explanation: “Have you ever been on a hike and you got lost? Happens to me all the time. Or you are on a trip at night and you just can’t figure out where you are? You feel that sense of being lost. It is a dreadful feeling. Then, when you see a sign or landmark that points you in the ashar or right direction, you are instantly filled with happiness.”
That is the Biblical sense of being “blessed.” Thus, verse 1 promises, “Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in his ways.” In other words, when we honor God and walk in his ways, we find ourselves walking in the straight direction, with our life being set right, and this brings contentment to our soul.
Our English word “blessed” derives from the Germanic noun blodan, which means “blood.” The original use of the word “blessed” had to do with pagan sacrifices. It literally meant to be “consecrated with blood” or to be “sprinkled with blood.” When the Germanic peoples came to faith in Christ, they kept the word “blessed,” but they began to see its significance in a new light. No longer was the word tied to pagan sacrifices; now it was seen in the light of Christ’s death for us. Probably the most accurate translation of the word “blessed” is “to be under the blood of—or under the care of—the One who died for you.”
Thus, the benediction of verse 5 could be read, “May the Lord from Zion, who gave his life for you, cover you with his blood and cover you with his care all the days of your life!”
The Greatest is Love
Christians, however, have not always taken this commandment of Jesus seriously. Often, when people have looked at Christians, they have seen less evidence of love and more evidence of conflicts with one another, hostility toward those who disagree with them, and apathy toward those in need.
I take hope, though, in knowing that there have been times when the followers of Christ have seriously sought to live in his love. In the 2nd century, followers of Christ were not known as much by the Greek title Christiani (Christians) as by the title chrestinai (the kind ones). The early Christian author Tertullian remarked, “What marks us in the eyes of our enemies is our loving kindness. ‘Only look,’ they say, ‘look how they love one another.’” Wouldn’t it be great if people said that about Christians today?
Generally, the Greeks used one of two words when speaking of love. One word was phileo, which was used to denote tender affection or ‘brotherly’ love. The other word was eros, which was used to denote romantic love. But when translating the Hebrew scriptures into Greek, looking for a word to describe God’s care for us, the translators looked for a word that might carry more weight than the word for brotherly love and less baggage than the word for romantic love. They chose a relatively unused Greek word, agape, to indicate God’s favor and goodwill toward us. New Testament writers picked up on this word and shaped the understanding of agape by using the word to describe:
- The unconditional love of God
- The self-giving, sacrificial love of Christ for us
- Voluntary care for those who are less fortunate
- Putting others’ needs above our own self-interests
- Wholehearted care for others
- Mercy
- Charity
- Benevolent giving
When Miles Cloverdale translated the Scriptures into English in the Cloverdale Bible of 1535, he invented a word to replace agape for his English readers. He actually took two English words and fused them together to express what agape means. The word he came up with is lovingkindness.
Our world is in desperate need of lovingkindness (aga;e). Thus, the apostle Paul concludes 1 Corinthians 13 (often referred to as “the Love Chapter”): “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”
Commenting on this verse, William Barclay stresses, “Great as faith and hope are, love is still greater. Faith without love is cold, and hope without love is grim. Love is the fire which kindles faith, and it is the light which turns hope into certainty.”
Our Daily Bread put it this way: “A third-grade science teacher asked one of her students to describe salt. ‘Well, um, it’s…,’ he started, then stopped. He tried again. ‘Salt is, you know, it’s….’ finally, he said, ‘Salt is what makes French Fries taste bad when you don’t sprinkle it on.’
“The Christian life also has an essential element: love. Paul emphasized its value as he wrote his letter to the Corinthians. Right in the middle of a section about spiritual gifts, he paused to say that even if we have gifts of service, speech, and self-sacrifice but don’t have love, we are nothing.”
What Makes Life Meaningful?
Solomon, the author of Psalm 127, opens the psalm with a reflection on the vanity of life: “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for He gives sleep to His beloved.”
Solomon struggled greatly with the vanity of life throughout his years on earth. He began his reign as king by seeking the leading of God for his life and for his kingdom. But over time, he became more and more enamored with foreign wives and with the international clout they brought him. Over the years, he is reported to have taken 1000 wives plus 300 concubines. He became less and less faithful to God, and more and more welcoming of foreign gods. His kingdom ceased to be a kingdom built by God and filled with the goodness of God. It became a nation driven by his self-absorbed heart, and consumed with displays of his power and prominence.
As this went on, Solomon became increasingly and painfully aware of the truth that “unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” In Ecclesiastes 2:11 he confided, “Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had spent in doing it, and again, all was vanity and a chasing after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.”
Chasing after wind is what we do when we chase after life void of God. Emptiness is what we end up with when we leave God out. In his autobiography, Time Bends, Arthur Miller writes about his wife Marilyn Monroe as she was on her way toward suicide: “One night, as I looked down on her, I couldn’t help thinking to myself, How I wish I still had my faith and she still had hers. What if I could say to her, ‘Darling, God loves you,’ and what if she could believe it? I wished so much that some miracle could happen for her. But I had no saving mystery to offer her.” Emptiness is, indeed, what we end up with when we leave God out.
Dag Hammarskjold, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, who died in a plane crash on September 18, 1961, also struggled with a sense of the emptiness of life. He wrote into his diary one day in 1952, “What I ask for is absurd: that life shall have a meaning. What I strive for is impossible: that my life shall acquire a meaning.” But unlike Solomon, Arthur Miller, and Marilyn Monroe who turned from God to chasing after the wind, Dag Hammarskjold turned from emptiness to faith. On Pentecost Sunday in 1961, he wrote, “But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone—or Something—and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal.”
In A Testament of Hope, Martin Luther King, Jr., shared a similar message: “I believe that standing up for the truth of God is the greatest thing in the world. This is the end of life. The end of life is not to be happy. The end of life is not to achieve pleasure and avoid pain. The end of life is to do the will of God, come what may.”
When we turn away from God, we end up chasing the wind. But when “the Lord builds the house”—when we live seeking to follow the ways of God and to do the will of God—life finds meaning and fulfillment.
What turns “hell” into “heaven” for us
She asked her guide why no one was eating. Her guide pointed out that the residents of hell have elbows that do not bend. Thus, they could not bring the fork to their mouths. Despite the tremendous banquet that was set before them, the residents of hell were all hungry and miserable, and they cried out in agony.
After that, she was given a vision of heaven. She was surprised to see how similar heaven looked to hell. Here, too, was a great banquet table filled with delicious dishes of food, and here, too, the residents’ elbows could not bend. But the people of heaven were laughing and singing. It was clear that they were well-fed and content.
What accounted for the difference in mood when the conditions seemed so similar?
As she looked more closely, she saw that the residents of heaven, with their unbending elbows, were feeding one another. The lesson of the fable is that life begins to turn from “hell” to “heaven” when we stop living self-centeredly and begin to care for one another.
Paul shares a similar lesson in his first letter to the Corinthians: “But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it” (1 Corinthians 12:24-26).
As God designed our hands and feet and eyes and ears and heart and liver and brain and skin and bones to work together as one body, so God designed you and I and other Christian brothers and sisters to work together as one Christian fellowship. For a Christian fellowship to be all that God intends it to be, we need one another. Indeed, we need for each of us to be caring for one another.
Rick Warren comments, “You were put on earth to make a contribution. You weren’t created just to consume resources—to eat, breathe, and take up space. God designed you to make a difference with your life. While many best-selling books offer advice on how to ‘get’ the most out of life, that’s not the reason God made you. You were created to add to life on earth, not just take from it. God wants you to give something back….
“In some churches in China, they welcome new believers by saying, ‘Jesus now has a new pair of eyes to see with, new ears to listen with, new hands to help with, and a new heart to love others with.’”
Someone imagined the Carpenter’s tools holding a meeting to air their grievances toward one another. Brother Hammer presided over the meeting, pounding the gavel for order, but several suggested he leave the meeting because he was too forceful. Brother Hammer replied, “If I have to leave, then Brother Screw must go as well. You have to turn him around again and again to get him to accomplish anything.”
As this, Brother Screw spoke up, “If you wish, I will leave, but if I do so, then Sister Plane should go, too. All of her work is on the surface. Her efforts have no depth.” Sister Plane responded, “If I have to go, then Sister Rule should also go. She is always measuring others as though she is the only one who is right.” Sister Rule then complained against Brother Sandpaper: “You ought to leave, too, because you’re so rough, and always rub people the wrong way.”
In the midst of this heated argument, in walked the Carpenter of Nazareth. He had arrived to start his day’s work. Putting on his apron, he went to the workbench to make a pulpit from which he would proclaim the Good News of God’s love and salvation. He employed the hammer, the screw, the plane, the rule, the sandpaper, and all the other tools. After the day’s work, when the pulpit was finished, Sister Saw arose and remarked, “Friends, I observe that all of us are workers together with our Lord, that he uses each of us to accomplish his good work”
Such is God’s intent with every Christian fellowship.
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