Is God Fragile?
Click here to read Psalm 38 in preparation for this post…
Over the decades I have had an uneasy relationship with the book of Psalms. Sometimes it feels to me like the writers are in danger of being completely smitted for their presumption. Consider the lament from King David found in Psalm 38.
"Take a deep breath, God; calm down - don't be so hasty with your punishing rod. Your sharp-pointed arrows of rebuke draw blood; my backside smarts from your caning. I've lost twenty pounds in two months because of your accusation. My bones are brittle as dry sticks because of my sin." Psalm 38:1-3 The Message
Calm down God? David's take-away over his egregious sin is to tell God to take a deep breath and CALM DOWN? I don't get it. Who dares to tell God to calm down?
It turns out that lots of Biblical characters had the kind of relationship with God where they could whine, complain, demand, accuse, beg and berate God. And God listens; responds; refuses at times to answer their pleas in favor of a BETTER response. Take Job for instance, Job has a ton of questions for God and demands a meeting. God eventually shows up and does not feel the need to defend himself. But what he does choose to do is restore Job while rebuking Job's friends who offer a stunning amount of bad advice.
Is David blaming God for his discipline? No, more likely he's just being a human - desperate to know when it will stop. His contrition becomes more clear starting in verse four..."I'm swamped by my bad behavior, collapsed under gunnysacks of guilt. The cuts in my flesh stink and grow maggots because I've lived so badly. And now I'm flat on my face feeling sorry for myself morning to night. All my insides are on fire, my body is a wreck. I'm on my last legs; I've had it - my life is a vomit of groans. Lord, my longings are sitting in plain sight, my groans an old story to you. My heart's about to break; I'm a burned-out case. Cataracts blind me to God and good; old friends avoid me like the plague. My cousins never visit, my neighbors stab me in the back. My competitors blacken my name, devoutly they pray for my ruin. But I'm deaf and mute to it all, ears shut, mouth shut. I don't hear a word they say, don't speak a word in response." Psalm 38:4-14
David is filled with guilt and self-pity. He cries out to God even as he realizes that he is blind to God and goodness at this point in his life. But David does a second thing, an important thing. He remembers what to do next:
"What I do, God, is wait for you, wait for my Lord, my God - you will answer! I wait and pray so they won't laugh me off, won't smugly strut off when I stumble. I'm on the edge of losing it - the pain in my gut keeps burning. I'm ready to tell my story of failure, I'm no longer smug in my sin. My enemies are alive and in action, a lynch mob after my neck. I give out good and get back evil from God-haters who can't stand a God-lover. Don't dump me, God; my God, don't stand me up. Hurry and help me; I want some wide-open space in my life!" Psalm 38:15-23
Read carefully and see how quickly David forgets about his sin and goes back to his illusion of self, "I give out good and get back evil from God-haters who can't stand a God-lover." This is a little hard to take from a guy who is a burned out case, swamped by his own bad behavior and currently collapsing under gunnysacks of guilt. I'm just saying - can't we all relate? It is hard to hold onto an accurate view of ourselves.
David aside, what brings me back to the Psalms every morning in my reading is NOT the messy way we humans tell our stories as we weep and wail and lament, but more to the point, it is the way God keeps showing up. God is not fragile; he is not easily offended; he is not constantly correcting us for all the ways we miss the mark. Who God is - is compassionate, caring, just, merciful, faithful and all the other wonderful characteristics the scriptures teach us to look for in him. David is looking, waiting, praying, hoping but I also think David, for all his faults and they are many, is believing that God will show up, help him recover his life.
Psalm 38 is kind of a hot mess when we read it through the lens of David; but it is also an indication that maybe, as the scriptures say, that messy King David is also "a man after God's own heart." I ask you: if David can be such a mess and still yearn for God - why not the rest of us?
My mother, a neat fanatic, famously yelled at my brother Gary as he stumbled home after a bad motorcycle accident. He was bloodied and bruised, a filthy mess, barely able to hold onto his bike as he rolled the wrecked bike home. Upon seeing him my mom said, "Gary, for heaven's sake, you are too dirty to take to the emergency room. Go wash yourself off with the hose. You cannot go in the house with all that blood pouring out of your arm." I thought he would bleed out before making it back to the car, much less the ER. He survived. Looking back through the lens of history, I think my brother Gary was the kind of guy who would trust God enough to write a prayer of lament. He certainly pre-qualified as fully human. In a world that imagines a God who is like us - image-conscious and shame-filled - maybe we could remember David. And Gary. But especially remember who God is; he does not require us to clean up before he can heal.
