Daily Lesson for July 6, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 142:

1 I cry to the Lord with my voice; *

to the Lord I make loud supplication.

2 I pour out my complaint before him *

and tell him all my trouble.

3 When my spirit languishes within me, you know my path; *

in the way wherein I walk they have hidden a trap for me.

4 I look to my right hand and find no one who knows me; *

I have no place to flee to, and no one cares for me.

5 I cry out to you, O Lord; *

I say, "You are my refuge,

my portion in the land of the living."

6 Listen to my cry for help, for I have been brought very low; *

save me from those who pursue me,

for they are too strong for me.

7 Bring me out of prison, that I may give thanks to your Name; *

when you have dealt bountifully with me,

the righteous will gather around me.

The Psalm begins with speaking of the LORD in the third person.  The Psalmist speaks as if outside himself, as if watching himself in a dream.

Then in verse three the language shifts. The focus moves from those watching the dream to the dream itself. It is night. The sky is dark. The world is bleak. The way ahead is absolutely unknown. This is the moment of complete despair. And in that moment comes the confession of faith:

“When my spirit languishes within me, you know my path.”

Here there is no use fleeing. The path must be walked. The way leads now from dark Gethsemane to even darker Golgotha.  There is no knowing what all is to come; and there is no avoiding it either.

Yet in the midst of the darkness there is the declaration of a belief in light. In the moment of complete and utter hopelessness there is faith. When the LORD seems nowhere to be found, the Psalmist declares his stubborn faith in God’s presence, summoning it even somehow in his prayer.

In a dark cellar in Cologne, Germany, where Jews once hid from the horrors of the Nazi holocaust, an unknown author scrawled these words into stone wall:

"I believe in the sun even when it's not shining. I believe in love even when I cannot feel it. I believe in God even when He is silent."

When God is silent, a word like that speaks. And in the mystery of prayer it becomes the Word of God, drawing near.