Joy in the Journey (42) - Deep calls to deep

A loss of place and purpose can have devastating consequences for our mental health. Whether that’s through the sorrow of bereavement or the breaking of our physical health or the displacement of job loss and established routines, all take a heavy toll upon us and can leave us reeling and disorientated.

Such an experience is related in Psalm 42 - “I used to go to the house of God...with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng.” Familiar faces and places; a role to play - perhaps a significant one - within the communal gatherings. All are now gone, lost. The psalmist’s removal to a far place (the heights of Hermon and Mount Mizar) is not simply geographical but is powerfully symbolic of where things are now at, psychologically and emotionally: his soul is downcast and disturbed within him; he is like a deer panting for streams of water, desperate to have its thirst slaked.

He is not where he used to be, nor where he wants to be. And it is affecting his experience of God in significant ways. It feels like God is unmindful of him, or even opposed to him: “all your waves and breakers have swept over me...Why have you forgotten me?” Our circumstances and our physical and mental anguish can take us, unerringly, to such barren places, to such intense struggles. We scarcely need other voices to ask “Where is your God?”

Yet the portrayal of that relationship with God is complex (thankfully, given that our own is likely to be so, too). It may even appear confused and contradictory, but that is the authentication our hearts recognise.

In the extremity of such distress, when God feels absent, there is nevertheless intense contact: “Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls.” And there is the awareness, profoundly thankful, that “By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me.” Which culminates in the repeated refrain that affirms with genuine confidence “I will yet praise him”.

What drives the hope the psalmist applies to his own downcast soul? That he is speaking of and to the one who is “my Saviour and my God”. The God who saves, not indiscriminately but with individual care and attention - my Saviour; my God - a reality that is deeper than the depths of self-despair. The God who saves by way of the cross, where deep called to deep in the roar of death’s waters, where all the waves of anguish broke over the Son of God.

In all the changes, in all the losses, this God is true and trustworthy. He is supremely touched by the feeling of our infirmities. He is the only one qualified and able to rescue from death, destruction and despair. "My soul...put your hope in God."

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Through all the changing scenes of life,

In trouble and in joy,

The praises of my God shall still

My heart and tongue employ.

Of his deliverance I will boast;

Till all that are distressed

From my example comfort take,

And charm their griefs to rest.

O magnify the Lord with me,

With me exalt his Name;

When in distress to Him I called,

He to my rescue came.

The hosts of God encamp around

The dwellings of the just;

Deliverance He affords to all

Who on His succour trust.

O make but trial of His love,

Experience will decide

How blessed are they, and only they,

Who in His truth confide.

Fear Him, ye saints, and you will then

Have nothing else to fear;

Make you His service your delight,

Your wants shall be His care.

(Nahum Tate, 1652-1715; Nicholas Brady, 1659-1726)

Joy in the Journey (41) - Rejoicing in the absence of Jesus

What are the things that give you joy? Where is that joy grounded? Those are important questions in the light of our present situation. So much that has been taken from us or denied to us were legitimate sources of God-given joy - people we have known and loved, whose absence we have felt keenly; places that have been sacred spaces of fellowship and support. There is something right and proper about such joy and the praise to God it yields. Which makes the separation all the harder to bear.

Whilst we properly lament such absences, there are resources in the Bible that help to re-align and deepen our thinking in significant ways. Luke 24:50-52 is one such incident.

Jesus’ disciples had spent 3 years in his company, in his love and in the joy that radiated from him. His death was a wrenching experience, collapsing their joys and closing their hopes, so it seemed. Which made his resurrection the most sublime re-birth of the deepest joy - their Lord and Saviour was alive! Death had been overcome; he was back with them and nothing had the power to steal him from them ever again.

But in the final verses of Luke's gospel we see him leaving them once more and for a far longer period. We might expect to see them perplexed and even inconsolable; was this one more unexpected denial of their joys? In the most emphatic terms it was not: "he left them and...they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy."

They rejoiced that he was absent from them. After he was taken from them, hidden from them, no longer physically present, no longer within reach and completely out of sight, they were filled with inexpressible joy.

That isn't, in any sense, a lesson in stiff-upper-lip emotional shutdown. When loved ones and life's blessings are lost to us it is entirely proper to grieve. Their joy wasn’t rooted in his absence but in what that absence meant: he had ascended into heaven as the Priest whose sacrifice for sin had been effective and whose blessing would ever remain on them. He had ascended as King over all and would continually govern all things for the sake of his people and for his purposes of grace for the world. That’s why they were able to rejoice in his absence.

And that present, high-priestly reign of King Jesus has power to enter our experiences with real power - not as a denial of sorrow and anguish but as the living presence of our loyal and loving Lord and as the certain promise of his consummated victory over all powers of chaos and darkness.

As we give thanks to God for every good and perfect gift that comes from him, and as we mourn their absence, our joy is founded upon and rooted in our ascended Lord Jesus. He is the one who raises his hands in blessing over his people. He is the risen Lord, enthroned at the right hand of the majesty on high. The hope we have in him has entered the inner sanctuary, behind the curtain, because that is where he himself is, on our behalf. And from there, from the very throne of God, flow rivers of joy, unspeakably glorious.

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With joy we meditate the grace

Of our High Priest above;

His heart is made of tenderness,

And overflows with love.

Touched with a sympathy within,

He knows our feeble frame;

He knows what sore temptations mean,

For He has felt the same.

But spotless, innocent, and pure,

The great Redeemer stood,

While Satan's fiery darts He bore,

And did resist to blood.

He in the days of feeble flesh

Poured out His cries and tears;

And, though exalted, feels afresh

What every member bears.

He'll never quench the smoking flax,

But raise it to a flame;

The bruisèd reed He never breaks,

Nor scorns the meanest name.

Then let our humble faith address

His mercy and His power:

We shall obtain delivering grace

In the distressing hour.

(Isaac Watts, 1674-1748)

Joy in the Journey (40) - My mouth will speak in praise of the LORD.

Some times of praise and prayer are like a cloudburst - torrential - and if you're caught (up) in it, drenching. But other expressions are more deliberate and considered, yet they are in no sense tame or timid in comparison with the unplanned overflowing of the clouds. Psalm 145 is one such instance.

This psalm is, in poetic terms, an acrostic. Every verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Here, then, are words that have been weighed and tested, tasted and approved - not clever, but constructed; shaped and structured with thought and care. And all under the tutelage of the master craftsman, the Spirit of God.

Well, that's all very interesting...but how does knowing it help us? For times when our hearts and minds are like ocean waves under the pull of a harvest moon, knowing this is praise that has been pondered without becoming ponderous, that it is structured for the whole of life (A to Z) and that it is so very extensive in all it says...those things become an invitation to join the chorus of praise, praise to the God of order and calm, the One who is "most worthy" of that praise.

This psalm is full of light and majesty. It invites us into room after room, gallery upon gallery, of the Lord's masterpieces. Phrase by phrase it discloses its sweetness, like flower buds opening in the warmth of the morning sun. It sweeps from generation to generation, each passing on the glories of God, the sublime joys of salvation and the complete security of his unflinching faithfulness and gospel grace.

The beauties of this psalm are worth staying with over many days. You could easily take it for a week's meditations that ground your praise in the LORD and his works and ways. Searching and savouring its truths will yield a reward far in excess of the time spent in doing so.

Having such a composition in our hands is a gift for all who find their words inadequate or who struggle because the impulse to praise has been pressed into submission by the falling sky of circumstances or trial. In life, it's often the case that cloudbursts are prefaced by stormy skies and the rending of the clouds by lightning and its thunderous report. In the turmoil and the distress, in which it seems no respite is at hand, psalms such as this can be the shelter we so deeply need. We can ask the Lord to make it so for us.

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When all Thy mercies, O my God,

My rising soul surveys,

Transported with the view, I'm lost

In wonder, love and praise.

Unnumbered comforts on my soul

Thy tender care bestowed,

Before my infant heart conceived

From whom those comforts flowed.

When worn with sickness, oft hast Thou

With health renewed my face;

And when in sins and sorrows sunk,

Revived my soul with grace.

Ten thousand thousand precious gifts

My daily thanks employ;

Nor is the least a cheerful heart,

That tastes those gifts with joy.

Through every period of my life

Thy goodness I'll pursue,

And after death in distant worlds

The glorious theme renew.

Through all eternity to Thee

A joyful song I'll raise;

But O! eternity's too short

To utter all Thy praise!

(Joseph Addison, 1672-1719)

Joy in the Journey (39) - How then shall we live?

The opening words of the book of Ruth sound like a death knell: "In the days when the judges ruled....". Days that are played out in the book of Judges, that culminate in rape, murder and an attempt at tribal ethnic cleansing. And so what follows feels all too predictable: a famine in the land, the betrayal of ancient loyalties and a family torn to shreds by the chaos of death.

In days like that, who could stand for truth? Who could possibly live faithfully? There are too many contrary pressures, too much compromise and complacency. No one can be immune to such a disease. The very best you can do, surely, is keep your head down, back away from corrupted society and hope the storm might eventually pass.

Maybe that's how you feel about our own days, too? Too many challenges to meet for your conscience to be kept clean and clear. Too many subtle and sorcerous stresses that deflate your heart and defeat your every attempt at honest goodness.

The book of Ruth persuades otherwise. The funereal beginning provides the context but it doesn't determine the tone and content of the lives on display. Rather, we're treated to a portrait of genuine godliness, of a faithfulness that grows more and more fruitful. A commitment to loyal love that reflects that of the covenant LORD; an approach to the Law that is not boundaried but looks to bless beyond its stipulations. A simplicity of faith, an honest humility, a dependence upon the living God and a thankfulness to him that is far more than lip service.

None of this is worked-out in ideal conditions. Naomi's faith is tattered and torn; Ruth is an outsider with a suspect heritage and Boaz risks his reputation and financial security. And yet...

And yet their lives display the beauties of the grace of God - a compelling, courageous expression of the life of God in the souls of men and women. Against all the odds, in the face of the most destructive currents that could engulf in a moment, they hoped in God, tasted and saw that he was good, and stood with a joyous integrity.

It could be said of them, as it was of Elijah, that they were people just like us. Fallible, prone to temptation; the unfinished handiwork of God. But this God, whose Son would come in the fulness of time from the line of Boaz and Ruth, is the God who will one day complete the work that he has started, on the day of Christ Jesus. He is our hope, in days like these.

Despite the times, our calling and privilege remain the same: to "become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and warped generation...shining among them like stars in the sky as [we] hold firmly to the word of life" (Phil 2:15), having all that we need for life and godliness, having the encouragement of being united to Christ, the comfort of his love and our common sharing in his Spirit.

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Speak, I pray Thee, gentle Jesus!

O how passing sweet Thy words,

Breathing o'er my troubled spirit

Peace which never earth affords.

All the world's distracting voices,

All the enticing tones of ill,

At Thy accents mild, melodious,

Are subdued, and all is still.

Tell me Thou art mine, O Saviour,

Grant me an assurance clear;

Banish all my dark misgivings,

Still my doubting, calm my fear.

O, my soul within me yearneth

Now to hear Thy voice divine;

So shall grief be gone for ever,

And despair no more be mine.

(William Williams, 1717-91;

tr. Richard Morris Lewis, 1847-1918)