David Bahn – Reflections

Psalm 30:1-3

I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up
and have not let my foes rejoice over me.
² O Lord my God, I cried to you for help,
and you have healed me.
³ O Lord, you have brought up my soul from Sheol;
you restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit.

Several years ago I visited a friend who served a large and growing church in southern California. He showed me around and spoke of the opportunities that were before them: an entire public school campus that they were going to add to their church property, with the significant expansion that would bring to their Christian day school – to name just one. Their ministries were blooming left and right. It was inspiring.

Later that week I had the opportunity to read the minutes from the voters meeting that had recently occurred at that church. I wondered whether it was from the same church my friend had described. The minutes reflected an apparently lengthy discussion in the voters meeting about a minor repair to their furnace. That was striking to me for two reasons: One – this was in southern California. I’m not certain they used their furnace more than a very few times a year. But the second thing that struck me was that this was a large church with a very large budget. The energy and anxiety portrayed in the minutes of that church’s voters meeting seemed much out of proportion.

I learned something by that visit: It’s all a matter of perspective. It’s not that repairs to a furnace are not important. Nor is it that they shouldn’t have thought carefully about how to deal with the issue they faced. It is, however, that this issue was a non-issue for my friend. His focus was on the opportunities before them as a church and the people who were being reached with the Good News of Jesus.

This has much to do with the various attitudes emotions displayed in the Psalms. While many of them are filled with praise to God, some are much more gritty. Some express grave doubt about God’s abandonment. Others seethe with deep desires for retribution against their enemies. Some exalt God from beginning to end. Others begin with a plaintive cry to God for help and end in a confident expression of praise to God in anticipation of his salvation.

Rather than discounting God’s goodness or being consumed with the overwhelming challenges of life the psalms of the Bible focus our hearts toward God. For even the most distressing of them look to God. Someone once said, “Don’t tell God how big your problems are. Tell your problems how big your God is.” In either case, however, God hears us when we call. The psalms bear testimony to that truth. I personally prefer a strongly optimistic view of things. But no matter what your personal personality bias might be you will find great affirmation in the psalms of the Bible, for the express the depths of the heart’s emotions to the God of our salvation.

Psalm 90:1-3

O God, you have rejected us, broken our defenses;
you have been angry; oh, restore us.
² You have made the land to quake; you have torn it open;
repair its breaches, for it totters.
³ You have made your people see hard things;
you have given us wine to drink that made us stagger.

Psalm 120:6-7

Too long have I had my dwelling
among those who hate peace.
⁷ I am for peace,
but when I speak, they are for war!

Psalm 150:1-2

Praise the Lord!
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens!^[a]
2 Praise him for his mighty deeds;
praise him according to his excellent greatness!