Schizophrenic Praise - Part TWO

Wednesday, February 8, 2023

All heaven will praise your great wonders, Lord; myriads of angels will praise you for your faithfulness.  For who in all of heaven can compare with the Lord?  What mightiest angel is anything like the Lord?  The highest angelic powers stand in awe of God.  He is far more awesome than all who surround his throne.  O Lord God of Heaven’s Armies!  Where is there anyone as mighty as you, O Lord?  You are entirely faithful.  You rule the oceans.  You subdue their storm-tossed waves.  You crushed the great sea monster.  You scattered your enemies with your mighty arm.  The heavens are yours, and the earth is yours; everything in the world is yours—you created it all.  You created north and south.  Mount Tabor and Mount Hermon praise your name.  Powerful is your arm!  Strong is your hand!  Your right hand is lifted high in glorious strength.  Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne.  Unfailing love and truth walk before you as attendants.  Happy are those who hear the joyful call to worship, for they will walk in the light of your presence, Lord.  They rejoice all day long in your wonderful reputation.  They exult in your righteousness.  You are their glorious strength.  It pleases you to make us strong.  Yes, our protection comes from the Lord, and he, the Holy One of Israel, has given us our king.  

Psalm 89:5-18

I like consistency; I like to know what’s planned, and I like to see things unfold exactly as planned.  Call it O.C.D. (obsessive-compulsive disorder)…but I don’t like surprises.  It was painful to read Psalm 88 yesterday, with its darkness, despair, and questioning.  And now, here I am this morning, reading the unabashed gushing of unwavering faith and praise in Psalm 89. 

If you lay aside the circumstances of these two psalms, the change from valley to mountaintop can make one dizzy!  What a ride!

As settled as I like things and people to be in my life, I am often moody and affected by uneven circumstances and events.  Life is not charted with a straight edge.  Rather, it can be, and often is, messy.  I’ve heard all kinds of advice…

There are Psalm 88 folk who are deep thinkers…go ahead, question God, they say; Brood if you must; God will answer when he’s ready.  It’s a dark way.      Psalm 89 folk are more positive….they say (with a smile):  when you’re bummed, just lift your hands and praise!  God is good; circumstances aren’t important!  Because I’m more of a brooder, I want to smack Psalm 89 folk upside their happy countenance (in a loving, Christian way, of course!).

So, what to do?  As much as I hate to admit it, I always feel better when I praise God in a Psalm 89 burst of praise.  The problem is, the rarefied atmosphere of the mountaintop fades away, and I’m left wondering if God heard anything I said.  When I stay chained to Psalm 88, with its questioning, blood-letting agony of walking God through why His plan doesn’t seem to be working (often winding-up in the woodshed for my trouble), I am also left wondering if thinking this deeply is worthwhile.  So….maybe this is the reason why God had these Psalms put next to each other.  We are supposed to do the gut-wrenching work of Psalm 88, questioning and agonizing with God like Job.  But we’re also meant to frame it all with the praise of Psalm 89!  It’s a two-pronged fork…Probing and Praising!

For You Today  

I’ve found this to be so helpful.  Whether you’re a brooder or a praiser, get out of your rut!  Get in there and wrestle with God like Jacob at the River Jabbok ^{Genesis 32}, but then come out praising Him like a charismatic at a camp meeting!  It’s not schizophrenic – it’s living life close to the vine!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

Worship Smiles  and  Bi-Polar Prayers 

This is an updated version of “Schizophrenic Praise - 2013 published on Rocky Road Devotions August 12, 2013

Images:  Title Pixabay.com   Images without citation are either personal property of the author, or in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

Can the Darkness Speak?

Psalms 88:1 - 18

For the choir director:  A psalm of the descendants of Korah.

A song to be sung to the tune “The Suffering of Affliction.”                

A psalm of Heman the Ezrahite.

O LORD, God of my salvation, I cry out to you by day.  I come to you at night.  Now hear my prayer; listen to my cry.  For my life is full of troubles, and death draws near.  I am as good as dead, like a strong man with no strength left.  They have left me among the dead, and I lie like a corpse in a grave.  I am forgotten, cut off from your care.  You have thrown me into the lowest pit, into the darkest depths.  Your anger weighs me down; with wave after wave you have engulfed me.    Interlude

You have driven my friends away by making me repulsive to them.  I am in a trap with no way of escape.  My eyes are blinded by my tears.  Each day I beg for your help, O LORD; I lift my hands to you for mercy.  Are your wonderful deeds of any use to the dead?  Do the dead rise up and praise you?   Interlude

Can those in the grave declare your unfailing love?  Can they proclaim your faithfulness in the place of destruction?  Can the darkness speak of your wonderful deeds?  Can anyone in the land of forgetfulness talk about your righteousness?  O LORD, I cry out to you.  I will keep on pleading day by day.  O LORD, why do you reject me?  Why do you turn your face from me?  I have been sick and close to death since my youth.  I stand helpless and desperate before your terrors.  Your fierce anger has overwhelmed me.  Your terrors have paralyzed me.  They swirl around me like floodwaters all day long.  They have engulfed me completely.  You have taken away my companions and loved ones.  Darkness is my closest friend.  (NLT)

Friday August 9, 2013

If contemporary worship gurus actually wrote hymns these days, this one would never make anybody’s list.  This song even has choir notes…sing it to the suffering tune.  In today’s culture worship songs require “happy and up-beat”.  Not so in Psalm 88!

With the exception of the first 6 words (O Lord, God of my salvation) the Psalm is pure lament (whining, if you will), the flood of an anguished soul.  Some would make much of the “honesty before God” nature of this prayer, and that’s a needful thing when you’re praying.  But this person is laying-out the miserable conditions of his life and, standing in the death of his emptiness, demanding an answer, Can the darkness speak?  Give me a little light on the subject, here, God!  What’s up with this life of mine?

Ever done that?

Have you ever laid it out there for God to speak out of the darkness of your existence?    If you haven’t, or at least if your personal lament hasn’t been quite as gruesome as Psalm 88, let Scripture remind us today that the worst possible scenario has already been center stage for God’s answers.

The people which sat in darkness saw great light;

and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.  

Matthew 4:16 (KJV)

Matthew ties the life of Jesus to Isaiah’s prophecy that a great light – God’s light on a dark world – would come to cover even the shadow of death.

While we remember that Jesus came to bring light and life, sometimes our personal darkness is so overwhelming.  Can that darkness we face really speak?  Does it say anything worthwhile?  Does it have meaning?

Do you recall the man who asked Jesus to heal his son?^{Mark 9}  Jesus brought up the issue of faith to a man facing the darkness of losing his child.  The man said, I believe…help me out of my unbelief.  Sometimes the greatest darkness is meant to frame the light we’ve been missing; it comes to display our unbelief and the pathway home to faith.

Father, in this day there may be darkness ahead.  When I’m stumbling around let faith light whichever pathway brings me to you.