Bright Eyes

“And the light of my eyes, even that has gone from me." (Psalm 38:10 NAS95)

I would like to think that my mind rules over my moods. But personal experience argues against this. Our minds are often clouded by the crush of emotions which are reactions to experiences, and there is a mental and spiritual "dimming of the eyes." The psalmist describes this condition. We understand.

Let's be clear. This condition does not imply that the sun has stopped shining or that God has abdicated His throne or that His promises have failed. Rather, there is in us an obstruction that shields us from that light, or a resistance that pushes it away. There is something in our hearts that does not want the light to shine, that does not want the truth to re-form, that does not want the heavenly vision to reign. 

Sin will bring about a dimming of the eyes. Suffering can lower one's gaze, so that we see only ourselves. Disappointment and failure can lead us to focus on what is wrong with us, and it can lead to an unwillingness to look up, to look forward. We find ourselves bereft of courage and imagination. Again, let's be clear. My sins are mine. I lower my gaze out of self-consciousness, consumed with my situation. I can really enjoy a little self-pity. This is me. This is my heart. We may indeed be victims, but we are most definitely sinners.

And sinners need to be reminded again and again of the Gospel which refreshes and renews, and which paints a picture of a heavenly future toward which we journey as saints who trust in a God who makes good promises. Yes, suffering and disappointment and rejection and pain are all facts of life. But the Gospel and a heavenly vision brighten my eyes.

Let's give Isaiah 30 a chance to help us with a dash of heavenly hope and vision. The people are off on a wrong foot once again. They are seeking help in all the wrong places. They are looking for someone to trust, someone on whom they can depend. But they don't look up. They veer sideways. In spite of this, God offers a word of hope. Yes, there will be trouble. Good times will be postponed. But God's hope comes shining through, nonetheless.

 “The light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, on the day the LORD binds up the fracture of His people and heals the bruise He has inflicted.” (Isaiah 30:25–26 NAS95)

There are so many other themes in this section of hope, but notice the light! Every color shines brighter, every detail clearer. What was murky has now become plain, and what was confusing is now obvious. We see the truth about ourselves, and we are cleansed of our deception. We see the truth about God, and He is glorious.

And then we add in some of the other elements noted in Isaiah 30: "weep no longer;" "your Teacher will no longer hide himself;" "He will give you rain;" "rich and plenteous;" "streams running with water;" "songs in the night; gladness of heart." A new day is dawning. It will be bright.

"Lord, give me bright eyes, that is, eyes to see Your brightness."

Sighing, Throbbing, Failing (Ps 38:9b,10a)

Sighing is the ouch of a pinched soul. It wants to breathe and expand as a spiritual lung. But there is constriction, whether within, or without. It can be caused by sin and guilt. It can be caused by sadness and sorrow. It can be caused by an obscuring of hope and by present difficulties. It is the soul's effort to relax and rest, but it can't.

Faith rests. It rests in Jesus. It rests in the promises of God and the comfort of the Spirit. A pinched soul is struggling with these things. It has not necessarily abandoned these things. But such things as pain and doubt are running a serious interference.

Romans 8:23 reads: “And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.” The pinched soul wants resolution. But it has to wait. Things are not as they should be. So in this mean-time, this cruel time, we wait.

One more thought on this word, addressed to "leaders." Hebrews 13:17 says that leaders of the local body of believers are to do their duty "with joy and not with grief (or sighing). They are instructed not to allow their souls to narrow due to pains and doubts. They must not lose their rest, their trust, their comfort. How could they lead?

A throbbing heart is a heart not-at-home. It is on the road; on the run. A throbbing heart is a hunted heart. It is a hiding heart. Powlison says that some are tempted to "tower," that is, to act as though they are bigger than they are. Others are tempted to "cower," to go into hiding in an attempt to disappear. Both are wrong. Better to have a big God, and to rest safely under His wings, growing and fulfilling service and responsibility under His care. 

Jeremiah 14:18 has an interesting rendition of this trading term - "gone roving." The priest and the prophet are either casting about, looking for something to do, or for somewhere to hide. They seem to have lost their vocation. They are unsettled.

The heart's vocation is to center on God, whether you call it waiting or exulting or loving or listening. The vocation of the believer is to believe. Jesus says in John 14:1, "Don't let your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me." But the pinched soul is accompanied by a throbbing heart that is more aware of its troubles than its God or her Savior.

Failing strength is the human condition. We are finite, and we fatigue. Except for one thing: our strength is to be in the Lord. Flesh is short-lived, but the Spirit is an inexhaustible and inextinguishable fire. This poor sinner of sighing soul and throbbing heart and flagging strength desperately needs the buoyancy of the Spirit. And He is there; right here, ready to lift and restore. Confess your sins. Bow in the dust, and let Him bear you up, and breathe heavenly air into your soul and supply firmness and solidity to your heart and an impossible strength to your mind and will.

The psalmist is at the cusp of something great. No, not in the next couple of verses, but before long, the light will shine through, and something surprising will happen. Do not give in to the darkness. Do not abandon hope. Take a breath, drop to your knees, and let your requests be made known to God. This is the beginning of rest; this is your home and your strength.

My Desire

A fitting title for Psalm 38 is "Psalmist Under Seige." He is surrounded by enemies, and he is beset with his sins.

The psalmist spends a good share of his time describing his condition. It's not pretty, but it is good for us to know. Now what we must believe both internally and effectually is that the same pain that has come upon him will surely come upon us whenever we succumb to the pressures and temptations, whenever we walk the wayward path, whenever we choose to honor sinful flesh instead of holy God.

In earlier posts, I have commented on previous verses. It has been over a month, and I've held off writing on Psalm 38:9, because I find the statement to be so profound, so humbling, and so true.

“Lord, all my desire is before You;”  (Psalms 38:9 NAS95)

I would guess that few are so glib as to read this little phrase and think, "Yes, Lord, you know how much I desire all that You desire." It is true that we do have high and holy desires. And God knows all about them. He knows our stated desires; our praise-song professions that we desire Him more than silver or gold. But God also knows about all the other desires as well. He knows not just our professed desires, but our practiced desires; not just our desires in theory, but our desires in practice; not just our intended desires, but also all the things to which we resort in times of weakness and willfulness and fatigue and frustration. "Lord, all my desire is before You."

Our desires are what we want. We do what we desire. I do not desire one thing, and want another, nor do I do things that I don't desire. Romans 7 indicates that we have layers of desire, and I'm not sure if we most often do our deepest desires, or the ones that are closest to the surface. Nonetheless, we still do what we want, what we desire at one level or another. And God knows every one of them.

As I was thinking and preparing to write about this phrase, it was tough to avoid a strong theme with regard to desire. It is not all about my desire. It is much more about God's desire. My problem and yours is not so much that our desires are wrong, but that we don't desire what God desires. That is what makes our wayward desires wrong. Our desires trump God's desires. I'll share just two examples.

“Listen, O daughter, give attention and incline your ear: Forget your people and your father’s house; Then the King will desire your beauty. Because He is your Lord, bow down to Him.” (Psalms 45:10–11 NAS95)

This is a royal psalm describing the glories of the King and the privilege of those who serve Him. To apply this verse in New Covenant format, Jesus treasures His church. He loves His bride. He desires sweet fellowship with His disciples. And so, the tragedy is when the church/bride/disciple(s) spurn Jesus' desire so that they might pursue their own interests.

“For the LORD has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His habitation. “This is My resting place forever; Here I will dwell, for I have desired it." (Psalms 132:13–14 NAS95)

God the Father has focused His desire on a place that is all about a Person. Zion does not have an address so much as it has an identity or fulfillment in God Incarnate. God loves and desires the revealing of Himself in His Son. There is nothing more important or valuable than that, for it is in this way that God is glorified. 

The Psalmist Under Seige, as well as the struggling pilgrim, find true peace and rest when Jesus becomes the well from which our desires are drawn. We will experience assurance and confidence when we turn away from broken cisterns in favor of living water. God has given us Jesus, and so, in the end, not only are all of our distressing desires known to God, but we find that the one True Desire is before Him as well.

Current State

“I am benumbed and badly crushed; I groan because of the agitation of my heart.” (Psalms 38:8 NAS95)

They say that in order to move to a desired state, we need to face the reality of today. What is my current state? The Psalmist says, "Uhh, ..."

The truth is, most of the time, you and I don't know our current state, especially when it comes to our desires and our motivations and attitudes and moods. We don't know ourselves very well. Our best moments can turn sour in a moment, and our depressions can sometimes reveal themselves in a sweet dependence on God. What is bad can be good, and what seems good can turn out pretty bad.

In Psalm 38:8, the psalmist uses three words that are bad, or good. The first two key words are passive. Then the psalmist groans because of a third condition, described by "agitation." So we will take them in order. "Benumbed" sounds bad to me. And yet this is the word that describes Jacob when he discovers that Joseph is alive after all those years (Genesis 45:26). He was "stunned." He was in shock, and his system did not know how to respond. But is that bad, or good? Maybe at times not knowing how to respond is a better response. "Badly crushed" sounds really bad. And yet in Psalm 51:17, the word is translated "contrite," describing a repentant heart. And that would be good. It seems that this psalmist is at the end of himself because of his sin. It is a most miserable condition. And it is exactly where he (we) need(s) to be.

These two passive verbs are translated somewhat differently in the LXX, and we find them used together, in the passive, in Genesis 15:13: "God said to Abram, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years.'" Our words are "enslaved" and "oppressed." That's got to be bad. And yet God's people were exactly where they needed to be in preparation for the coming redemption/deliverance. (The LXX translators chose the common Greek word for "humbled" to render "oppressed.")

"Agitation" may result from things good or bad. One can be agitated in anticipation, or agitated out of regret. Sure, we would like to be at rest, all relaxed. But both students before the test, one prepared, the other unprepared, may both feel a sense of agitation.

All of this is to say that when we are benumbed and badly crushed and groaning due to agitation, we still may not be able to say a lot about our current state ... other than this: God is still on the throne, and He is at work in the world and in our lives; His sovereign purposes are able to salvage sinners like you and me, and He is even able to use our mess-ups for good; All of life is His laboratory, and though we at times feel like lab rats, He will wisely administer His goodness. This is our current state. Not bad.

"We've Got Trouble Here!"

As we raise our children, we celebrate growth and progress. Yet we must admit that much of life is taken up with damage control, dealing with break-downs of one type or another. The psalmist in Psalm 38:3-7 is in the midst of this kind of mess. I am selecting this portion of Psalm 38 since it is enclosed at beginning and end by the words, "there is no soundness in my flesh."

Integrity means "of one piece." The person of integrity is not fractured, but rather is whole. There is not a great distance between what he says and what he does. He does not pretend great success in the midst of prevailing failure. He is real, all the way through. The psalmist's references to "no soundness," "no health," "iniquity," and "wounds" show that he admits to a fragmenting of life.

To his credit, the psalmist is not claiming that everything is great on the outside while he experiences misery on the inside. These words from Isaiah 1:6 may match his confession, perhaps not physically, but mentally, spiritually and emotionally: "From the sole of the foot even to the head There is nothing sound in it, Only bruises, welts and raw wounds, Not pressed out or bandaged, Nor softened with oil." An essential step for each of us is to admit that there are real problems.

Three "because" phrases (vv 3,5) show his understanding of his situation. First, the psalmist knows that he is in trouble "because of God's indignation." "Who can stand before His indignation? Who can endure the burning of His anger?" Nahum 1:6. Second, he is in trouble "because of my sin." He has done what he has done (or not done), and he cannot change the facts of history. The record has been sealed. Third, he is in trouble "because of my folly." The dumb thing about folly is that we know that we are so foolish we will do the dumb thing again. "Like a dog that returns to its vomit Is a fool who repeats his folly" Proverbs 26:11.

When sin gets the best of us, it is like we are drowning in it. Verse 4 speaks of being "overwhelmed," the only negative use of this word in the Old Testament. It feels like we are going under for the last time. This verse speaks of a burdensome-ness to this condition. A bad man makes a rotten mule, unable to bear his load. Verse 5 then describes the sickening side effects: we are offensive to others, and we really cannot stand ourselves.

The last two verses of this section suggested to me several "d" words. When sin's grip is severe, it has far-reaching effects. "Bent" suggests a deranged condition. "Greatly bowed" indicates deep despair. "Mourning" points to a kind of darkness that obscures plain sight. The problem with this condition is that it renders one unable to function properly. Our senses are damaged by this dismal fog of sin and failure. The "burning" of verse 7 suggests disgrace. A dismantling has occurred, so that you are not the person you used to be. This is not progress. It is regress. There will no celebrations for you tonight.

I'm anxious to get out of this section, aren't you? But for each of us in the grip of sin, hoping to find ourselves once again in the grip of grace, this is an essential part of the experience. We need to see ourselves for the sinners that we are, and we need to see our sin for the damage that it does.

Invasive Surgery

The Bible uses language which leads me to think of God as a surgeon. He uses His "arrows" and "hand" to dig deep into our lives to correct the problems that we can scarcely describe, let alone repair. Listen to the psalmist speak:

“For Your arrows have sunk deep into me, And Your hand has pressed down on me.” (Psalms 38:2 NAS95)

Initially, this seems to us like bad news. We don't take kindly to the prospect of surgery. We warm to it reluctantly. We need to be convinced that it is absolutely necessary, and that we can trust this particular individual to do surgery on our person. This trust is based on some confidence and record of the surgeon's skills, and that he has the resources, tools, environment and support to do the work without complications. And even then, there are few of us who approach surgery without qualms.  

Our psalmist who testifies out of the circumstance of divine surgery - he is a sinner. Do I really want to go into surgery when the Surgeon knows that I am a scoundrel? As a sinner, we have violated the Surgeon's prescription and honor. He knows how likely we are to do it again. And he has my life in His hands. 

And yet it is this Surgeon alone who loves us enough to make the self-sacrificing investment in our lives. And it is this Surgeon alone who is able to successfully change us from the inside out. This divine action is our only hope. We need His arrows sunk deep into us, and we need His hand pressed down upon us.

Surgical language gets borrowed by those outside the medical community. The military speaks of "surgical strikes." These are lightning quick invasions into enemy territory, and then our soldiers/planes are gone even while the devastating effects are being realized. It might take a while for a population or government to even know who or what caused the damage. 

God the Surgeon not only operates on individual lives, but has acted as General as well in orchestrating a surgical strike into the enemy territory of this world by sending His Son into this world. Here is the Old Testament record of God's intent in Christ, using some of the same terms as in Psalm 38: 

“He has made My mouth like a sharp sword, In the shadow of His hand He has concealed Me; And He has also made Me a select arrow, He has hidden Me in His quiver.”

(Isaiah 49:2 NAS95) 

Most people didn't realize what had happened until Jesus was already returned to heaven. Many still don't get it. But as with God's surgical action in my heart, I see that God's military action in this world was necessary to deal a death blow to the enemy and establish His rule in our crucified Captain and resurrected King, Jesus.

And so for Christians who read Psalm 38 and Isaiah 49, we find that the surgical and military actions of God come together in Christ who rescues the world from death and the devil and changes us from the inside out. Psalms 38:2, and news of divine surgery is not a threat, but a promise. We need His work in our lives. We need it now. "Please Lord, drive your purposeful and powerful surgical instruments deep into me. Hold me back and down and close with Your loving and correcting hand."

Dread-Locked

The psalmist is having trouble. We can relate. And so he prays: 

“O LORD, rebuke me not in Your wrath, And chasten me not in Your burning anger.” (Psalms 38:1 NAS95)

Let's be clear: the psalmist is not asking to avoid rebuke or chastening. He is asking that He be spared the fierceness of God's wrath and burning anger in the process. "Deal with me, but deal with me gently."

These two (Hebrew) words describing God's anger are used in a telling context at the foot of Mt. Sinai when Moses descends only to find God's people sunk in sin. As Moses recounts the scene years later, he describes it this way: “For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which the LORD was wrathful against you in order to destroy you” (Deuteronomy 9:19 NAS95). These people were in deep danger. Their sin, and mine, creates an acute problem.

The best cross-reference I have found for God's action of rebuking and chastening is in Jeremiah 2:19: “Your own wickedness will correct you, And your apostasies will reprove you; Know therefore and see that it is evil and bitter For you to forsake the LORD your God, And the dread of Me is not in you,” declares the Lord GOD of hosts.” Jeremiah 2 is a classic chapter in describing the loss and peril that attaches to those who walk away from God. Now apply this to your own situation. Think about your sin(s), and then state that first phrase: "Your own wickedness will correct you." That is, the sin that you yourself commit will become the stake that skewers you one day in the future. The commission of sin(s) opens the door for evil and bitterness to flood into your life.

This all stems not just from your attraction to sin, but much more from your aversion to the fullness of who God is. One aspect that you and I purposely neglect is this: that God hates sin. He hated Israel's sin. He hates my sin. He hates your sin. God is terrible in relation to sin, and will unleash His terrors on sin and sinners. Aslan is not a safe lion, and our God is not a safe God. It is good for you and I to know something of the dread of God.

We cannot stop here. The blessed Gospel provides a safe haven from which we, like Daniel's three friends, can feel the fire without being consumed by the flames. Our Savior, Jesus Christ stared deeply into the dread of God and was consumed by it. He bore the penalty of our sin(s) Himself in our place. In Christ, we have relief. In Christ, the psalmist's prayer is answered: God will  rebuke and chasten, but not in His wrath and burning anger, not because He has laid aside His wrath, but rather because His wrath has been spent and satisfied in Christ's sacrifice.

As I sit here, hidden in Christ, I now ask that I would not be ignorant or forgetful of the dread of God - that my Father in heaven hates sin with a vengeance, and therefore, so should I. And, if you sit there, apart from Christ, I pray that the dread of God would compel you to come quickly to Christ and find the answer to the psalmist's prayer in Him.