Here I am in the midst of the Lenten season. I have been reading my Bible, trying to pray, avoiding social media, and really working hard to get myself into a routine that is conducive to good faith practice--that is, I've been working real hard to root our sin and draw closer to Jesus. It is necessary because I know myself and I know when I am off-balance my tendency is to let it affect everything in my life. I can still function, but it is not a robust functioning. It's more like a robotic, going through the motions kind of functioning devoid of joy and verve.
I mentioned in a previous post, Lenten Reflection #6, that I have been reading the Psalms and the Proverbs as part of my Lenten reflection. I learn something new every time I read the Psalms. They are without doubt one of my favorite books of the Bible for reasons I have mentioned elsewhere: they are raw with emotion and powerful naked humanity on display. DA Carson, in his book How Long, O Lord?, writes this about Psalm 6 in particular and the Psalms in general:
It is overwhelmingly important to reflect on the fact that this psalm and dozens of similar ones are included in Scripture. There is no attempt in Scripture to whitewash the anguish of God's people when they undergo suffering. They argue with God, the complain to God, they weep before God. Theirs is not a faith that leads to dry-eyed stoicism, but a faith so robust it wrestles with God.
David...does not display stoic resignation, nor does he betray doubt that God exists. Even when he feels abandoned by God, his sense of isolation issues in an emotional pursuit of the God who, in his view, is slow to answer. (67)
So this morning as I was reading my Psalms for the day and jotting a few thoughts in my journal, it struck me that frequently the Psalmists cry out to God, "How Long, Lord?" Well of course I have know it was there because I have read it before, but for some reason this morning it stood out to me like a rose on a thorn bush.
Psalm 6:1: "My soul is deep in anguish. How long, Lord, How long?"
Psalm 13:1: "How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?"
Psalm 35:17: "How long, Lord, will you look on?"
Psalm 79:5: "How long, Lord? Will you be angry forever? How long will your jealousy burn like fire?"
Psalm 89:46: "How long, Lord? Will you hide yourself forever? How long will your wrath burn like fire?"
Psalm 94:3: "How long, Lord, will the wicked, how long with the wicked be jubilant?"
And if that isn't enough, this is only one way the Psalmists ask where God is at any given moment. Sometimes they are even more to the point, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Psalm 22).
Tough to figure out this God--this God who is 'playing hard to get' (R Mullins). I mean think about it, why would the Psalmist have to cry out, "Answer me when I call to you my righteous God?" (Psalm 4:1) if God is already active in this world and in our lives? Why do we have to ask God to answer us? It almost sounds like a parent scolding a child who stubbornly refuses to answer: Answer me when I am talking to you! The child of course, will not be cajoled into speaking until he is ready to speak and there is nothing the parent can do but wait....wait....wait....
"Arise, Lord! Lift up your hand, O God. Do not forget the helpless." (Psalm 10:12)
I wrote in my journal this morning a few thoughts about this 'How long, Lord?' question I keep seeing in the Psalms. I have to be honest: I find this question the most frustrating of all the questions the Psalmists ask. You know why? Because there is literally nothing I can do to force God's hand or to open his mouth. I can pray. I can sing. I can offer myself daily as a 'living sacrifice'. Nothing. God opens his mouth when he is ready and until then...the righteous, the faithful--whoever they are--wait.
And it get's no better in the New Testament. I recall twice, at least, when I hear this question asked. One indirectly in Acts 1: "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" I take this as an indirect, "How long, Lord? How long?" The other time is more direct and is found in Revelation 6: "They called out in a loud voice, 'How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?'" Wow. Even New Testament people are not answered, always, directly or quickly.
I came to a couple of conclusions in my journal notes.
First, it seems safe to say that the people of God must wait. We wait a lot. I guess, however, that we are willing to wait. We must wait. What else is there to do but hope...and wait? (That's the last line of my favorite book of all time, The Count of Monte Cristo.)
Second, the people of God complain a lot while they wait. I don't see that God anywhere in Scripture ever faults his people for their anxious prayers or the words that make up the prayers. In fact, God seems to desire our prayers.
Third, I'm not sure what God is doing with all those cries. I think about Israel in Egypt for 400 years. Then the writer of the Exodus tells us, almost casually, "The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them" (Exodus 2:23-25). Really? He saw their oppression and looked on them? Meanwhile, Moses had to grow to about 80 years before the prayer was answered.
Fourth, read Hebrews 11. "These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised" (11:39). None of them?!? Seriously? Then in almost the very next breath he writes, "Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith."
Fifth, you ever just get tired of waiting?
This week has been Dr Seuss week at the school--perhaps all across the country. Each day we have been reading different Dr Seuss books and completing little projects to go along with the book. Tomorrow's book is Oh, the Places You'll Go. This is a great book, but for some reason I haven't been able to find my copy so I decided to look up a youtube version and let the kids watch it. I always preview these things and while watching it after school today, here's what I heard:
And IF you go in, should you turn left or right...
or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?
Or go around back and sneak in from behind?
Simple it's not, I'm afraid you will find,
for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.
You can get so confused
that you'll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles cross weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place...
...for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or the waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.
Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for the wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.
On the one hand, it seems to be the thing about being a Christian. We spend a lot of time waiting. I don't think I wanted to wake up today and think another minute about waiting. I certainly didn't want to work on a Dr Seuss project this afternoon and think about waiting. I typically hate when Valentine tells her husband at the end of Monte Cristo that we have to 'hope and wait.' I hate waiting. I'm tired of waiting. I wish God would hurry up and make some kind of revelation about what he's doing or going to do or whatever.
On the other hand, we do seem to spend a great deal of our life waiting. Maybe that's because God thinks we need a lot of mid-course corrections. The trick, I think, is to press on through the waiting, through the times when we are seemingly standing still. Maybe when it seems we are standing still is when we are actually making the most forward progress. Maybe.
I don't think waiting is 'wasted space'. Or wasted time, for that matter. Waiting is waiting and we occupy our time with thoughts (think about Hebrews 11 again) and the business of the Kingdom and with creating space for God to move within us. Waiting is a way of unfettering ourselves from all that keeps us moving in the wrong direction. Waiting allows us to re-evauate, re-assess, and re-direct our lives or, better, to allow God to do so.
I don't know who said it or where it came from, but in the front of my Bible I once scribbled these words: Maybe what God is doing in you while you wait is more important than what you are waiting for.
Now, once again, I am undone.
Undone. And waiting.
Book Review: Exposing the Psalms
Author: Peter Nevland
Publisher: Authentic Media
Year: March 2014
Pages: 240 (e-book)
Additional Information: Spoken Groove
Buy at Amazon: Exposing the Psalms
Tree of Psalms project
[Disclaimer: Some high ranking government official had a brainchild one day and said that if I didn't inform my readers that I received a free copy of the book in exchange for my unbiased review then you, the reader, might assume the review was biased. Either way, I received a free e-copy of this book in exchange for my mostly unbiased review.]
I am glad Nevland included an index in the back of his book Exposing the Psalms. For me, as a theologian first and a reader second, it is important to know what sort of literature influenced an author who has had the audacity to write about Scripture. I am fairly well read when it comes to commentaries and theology and I have to say that the sources were a bit lacking. There's nothing wrong with reading Matthew Henry's (1700's) commentaries or with reading Jameson, Fausett, and Brown (1800s) or with reading John Gill (1700s), but the fact remains that there are literally hundreds of commentaries that would provide and additional 300 years worth of insight into the Psalms. I'm sure Mr Nevland has his own reasons for using these particular commentaries, maybe not. Still I find it bizarre in a curious sort of way. Again, it's not that it's wrong, it's just strange.
The book itself is an interesting read. One of the more important aspects of the book is that Nevland does not come at the Psalms with an overtly scholarly point of view. He might be a scholar, as is evident (occasionally) by the depth of his writing, and there is a strong theological element to the books too, but maybe he's just good at research and processing. He does outline his methods at the beginning, which is helpful too, but maybe he prefers simply to read and experience the Psalms (such as he did with Psalm 95 where he wrote that he 'must have read it more than twenty times, before it changed me enough to connect to its story', 100.)
Either way, there were times when reading the book that I was simply blown away by the depth of the insight he offered on a verse or a Psalm (e.g., his thoughts on Psalms 148 & 133 were brilliant). Then there were times when I was somewhat shocked by what appeared to be a rather naive approach to a Psalm (e.g., his thoughts on Psalm 23 & 24 were incredibly similar, theologically strange, and in my experience difficult to accept as meaningful: "So the 'paths of righteousness' in Psalm 23 instantly draw a picture of God leading you on a road where you can do no wrong.He'll surround you with so much goodness, you can't make a mistake. Instead of goodness coming from the inside out, it attacks you until it penetrates your soul. Every possible decision is right", 34. Frankly, I have no idea what those sentences mean. See also, pages 39 & 205 where there are hints of this 'prosperity' notion. )
At the end of each section of writing about a specific Psalm (Nevland covers 30 of them in the book, and in random order. I didn't care for the randomness of the order, but again I suppose he had his purposes) Nevland gives the reader 3 questions to mull over and answer. I thought this was an especially nice idea. It helps draw the reader back into the Psalm and also encourages deeper or at least more focused thought about the Psalm. He also included at the end of each section a song or a poem that is somehow closely connected with the Psalm he has just exposed us to. I will say this much, I admire Nevland as an artist, but I didn't have much use for the songs/poems. Frankly, I got to the point where I just stopped reading them. In my opinion, the book was neither better nor worse because of their inclusion. Some readers will enjoy them and read them, others will not.
A small point of contention for me was the imbalance of the book. Some chapters were really long and heavy. Other chapters were very short and ended somewhat abruptly. It may be a personal thing, but I would have preferred a bit more balance to the chapters. (I get that some Psalms are longer than others and require more pages, but I think there are ways to solve that particular problem.) Balance in chapters helps a reader establish a rhythm in their reading and it was difficult to establish such a rhythm with the disproportionate chapters.
The truth is, this is not the type of book one should sit down and read straight through and then review on a blog. This is a slow book. By that I mean, I think it needs to be read slowly, one needs to take their time, one needs to dance a little with the Psalms Nevland is exposing (and by and large I think he did a fine job keeping the Psalms in their historical context) in order to fully appreciate what he is doing--which is where I think Nevland's brilliance shines forth: these are songs, psalms, poems read, performed, or sung at the king's court or in the King's court. These Psalms are neither monotone, nor monolithic. These songs were written, often, in community. They were most certainly performed in community. They are towering, staggering collections of voices, read throughout the generations of those who seek the Face of God from during the high points of festivals to the lowest depths of dereliction. These are the voices of honesty and praise and worship and lament and fear and abandonment and adoration and faith. These are the voices of God's people through the ages attempting to understand God's absence and attempting to stand up in his presence.
If I had to narrow my thoughts down and say something absurd like 'this is the one thing Nevland did exceptionally well in his book' it would be at this point. I think Nevland did a remarkable work helping remind his readers of the historical context, the liturgical voice, the desperate prayers, the communal and personal nature of the Psalms. I enjoyed that he got me thinking about these Psalms not as mere words scratched into a scroll or parchment--detached from all context or historical upheaval--but as the words of living, breathing people who were being chased by rebels, threatened by wild animals, or suffocating and gasping for their last breath. I like that he got me listening to the words as if a full band were playing in the background and dancers were leaping and twirling with every word. He got me thinking about people trembling in the presence of enemies and finding peace in the presence of God. In a word, he had a way of bringing these Psalms out of their scholarly garb and into my work & play clothes. That, in my opinion, is the best part of the book.
I do have one complaint about the book: Jesus just seems kind of thin in the book. There are times when Jesus is Jesus, but there are other times when he is 'some other famous guy' (see 127). This bothered me. It's probably not that Nevland purposely avoided Jesus and I'm certainly not saying that he has no interest in Jesus. I am saying that even Jesus pointed out that the Psalms were, by and large, written about him (see Luke 24:44). Does this mean every Psalm is about Jesus? Maybe. Maybe not. My point is that we may well find that the Psalms speak to us or speak for us (even Jesus prayed the Psalms at his crucifixion, see Luke 23:46, Matthew 27:46), we may find that they offer us great consolation or great consternation, but at the end of the day the Psalms point to something, someone, beyond themselves. The Psalms are not Psalms merely for their own sake.
Nevland doesn't necessarily avoid Jesus, but neither do I think he goes out of his way to make him as fully present, or as evident in the Psalms, as he could have. It's important that the Psalms live, but even the authors of the Psalms would probably tell us they were not writing merely to bring out the emotional best in the readers.
I give this book 4/5 stars.