Embarrassed by God
My tears have been my bread day and night, while they continually say to me, “Where is your God?” Psalm 42:4 Hebrew text (Hebrew World)
Where – “Tragic is the embarrassment of the man of faith.”[1] Do you experience the embarrassment of faith? Have you had the accusations of Job’s wife thrown at you? “If your God is so loving and good, why are you suffering so? If you believe He is kind and faithful, why is there so much suffering in the world? Why would His ‘Son’ have to suffer like that? What kind of God could stand aside and let this happen?” Job’s wife exhorted Job to “bless” God and die. Yes, her words are translated “Curse God,” but the Hebrew word is berek, “bless”, not aroora, “cursed.” The great irony of faith is the absence of God in the lives of the righteous.
David is suffering, not only because his personal trauma affects his life but also because the taunts of the wicked dishonor the God he serves. When God fails to rescue His children, the world concludes that God is callous or impotent or worse. God’s honor is defiled by His apparent abandonment. The man of faith endures ridicule for his convictions and humiliation for God’s name. What is such a man to do? Even his hope seems dashed against the rocks of the real world. Day and night he cries for relief and vindication, but far too often there is no answer from heaven.
David finds two sources of comfort. The first is determined by his direction. While he is unable to see the course of God’s hand in the resolution he feels he needs, he can see the hand of God in his past. Unlike the man who looks for God over the horizon, David rows his boat with his eyes firmly set on the buoy markers he can see. He faces the past in order to proceed into the future. He looks where God has been in order to answer the question, “Where is God now?”[2]
The second is the permission he gives himself to feel and express what is happening in his heart. Notice that David does not resolve his concerns by castigating himself for feeling as if God has abandoned him. That’s really how he feels! He knows it and God knows it. So he expresses exactly what he feels. He doesn’t try to spiritualize it or push it out of sight. This is comfort – to be able to speak my heart in front of God. It isn’t necessary that God answer me directly, immediately, assuredly. It is important only that God hears me. Where is God? Listening to me, that’s where God is!
There will always be dark nights of the soul. There will always be spiritual eclipses of His light. Until He reveals Himself as Lord of creation, we will experience absence. But the cardiac wasteland is the home of El Shaddai. He hears the cry of the afflicted. In fact, it is because we are afflicted that we can raise our lament to Him. And He remembers who we are.
Topical Index: where, ayeh, abandoned, Heschel, Psalm 42:4
[1] Abraham Heschel, I Asked for Wonder, p. 38
[2] see my article “Row Your Boat,” and the discussion of Exodus 33:23
I am leaving for South Africa today and will be gone for 2 weeks. Patrick will be watching over Today’s Word, but if you need to contact me, please remember that I will not always have internet access. Skip
It’s truly amazing how often God speaks into our lives through others. I have had this happen twice today and my day has just begun!
As I wait for Him to open up opportunities, I am reminded through this timely message, that my Father tells me there will be days like this. For several years, the longing of my heart was to be in community with like minded believers. I could not put up a front that everything was good when it wasn’t and was being told my faith was weak and I was being led into deception. Too many wanna be prophets and not enough servants. Too many decreeing, drug addicted, power hungry “priests” worshipping idols of tradition, refusing to be transformed by Torah, and living with pride, prejudice and unrepentant.
Is it OK to express this here? It seems that I am missing the corporate worship setting but yet cannot listen to the watered down and anti-Torah teaching and pretend it’s good! I can no longer be “hooked on a feeling”. I want to know Him in His fullness! My Deliverer is coming!
Even now, I am clinging to the ROCK of my salvation, encouraged to hear that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, blessed be the Name of Yeshua.
Shalom Mary,
Speaking of wanna be prophets…. how about the Law and the Prophets. I saw something concerning the Prophets, that Yeshua quotes in Matthew 5:17-18, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
In the first part of this saying Yeshua mentions the Law and the Prophets, and in the second part He only refers to the Law. The reason it seems to me that He does this is because the Prophets authority stems from the validity of not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. The Prophets are calling His people back to Sinai and the revelations of God’s commands and Instructions. Without the validity and authority of God’s commands and instructions the Prophets authority would be null!
It is amazing to me that Yeshua in the context of the Sermon on the Mount uses the Prophets to validate Torah and not His mission! It seems in the Christian world we use the Prophets as an proof-text to prove the identity and mission of Yeshua, (fulfilled prophecy). But here Yeshua uses the Prophets as a validation of the authority and the separateness of Torah for our witness of being salt and light to the world. Do you think we are missing somethere here? Whose authority are we listening to?
I believe why the church will not take a serious look at the Prophets is because that would require of them to return to the God of Sinai, and ‘hear’ His commands and Instructions once again.
Thanks for sharing my sister. Be Blessed!
Perhaps some contemporary renditions of “the prophets” are really attempts to justify the claim that modern “prophets” stand in the same tradition. Of course, any modern prophet who does not ascribe to Torah cannot be a prophet of God. It also seems to me that we have done a marvelous job of converting the Beatitudes into spiritual formulae for success with God (and rewards) rather than understanding the Hebraic context of these Zen-like pronouncements (more in my book which just needs someone to get behind it so it can be printed).
And yes, Mary, it s perfectly OK to express your frustration and hope here. David would have applauded.
Hi Mary,
I know how you feel. I left the church in 03 for the same reasons. Then, I went into the Messianic movement for 5 years and left for similar reasons. In that movement I realized that following Torah just wasn’t enough. Everything is vanity unless Elohim changes our heart. Often, it seems, that He starts the deliverance through the church and teaches us the difference between good and evil through the Torah but only on His terms and in His time does He make a heart status change in our lives like Jacob to Israel.
I have been alone with Him in the wilderness (figuratively and literally) for 2 years. I fought it but in the last 2 months I have finally submitted and have found joy in being alone with the Ruach HaKodesh. It has been a battle but I have experienced much deliverance. Praise Yah!!!
Mary, I understand the cry of your heart. I am very blessed to be able to worship at a Messianic synagogue. Where do you live? I think there may be some Messianic synagogues/ ministries that offer a way to engage with them over the internet. I think Rabbi Jonathan Bernis and Paul Wilbur have monthly on-line services, so perhaps that could be an option to help you connect? We also have small group from my synagogue that meets in our home every other Saturday evening and I’m finding that we are growing in intimacy and faith with one another. Our synagogue is trying to breathe life into our fledgling Chavurah groups. I mention it because that could also be an option. I know I really need to be connected to a community, yet I understand your misgivings. I would have a hard time in a church setting, unless it honored the torah and loved Israel. I pray you will find a faith community who will be lev echad (one heart). Donna
I love today’s post! This reminds me of what I have been learning in recovery from codependency: “I must FEEL before I can HEAL.”
Psalm 62:8 “Trust in Him at all times, O people; Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us. Selah.”
Psalm 74:21 “Let not the oppressed return dishonored; Let the afflicted and needy praise Your name.”
Psalm 116:1,2 “I love the LORD, because He hears My voice and my supplications. Because He has inclined His ear to me, Therefore I shall call upon Him as long as I live.”
The Father DOES truly “gives permission to feel and express what is happening in my heart.” Praise YHWH!
Faith is one being established with the Creator. In other words, my faith in God is understood in terms of His stabilizing affect in my life. What if my life doesn’t seem stable? Have I lost my faith? What if others question or are confused by the bad things or the trauma happening to me? Is it because I don’t have enough faith? Things are not always what they appear to be seems to me to be Skip’s well made point.
According to the “faith movement” the measure of one’s blessings is the measure of one’s faith. This is the same corner that meaningless bumper sticker-like slogans appear. Ones like: “name it, claim it”; “blab it, grab it”; and “get under the spout where the glory runs out”. It’s the same philosophy that exclaimed in the 80’s: “If the Apostle Paul would have had the same revelation as I have, he would not have had a thorn in the flesh.”
To borrow a phrase from Paul, in my opinion, I count the “faith movement” thinking all as dung.
God is the measure of my faith, not my blessings; not what others perceive or observe in my life. Yes, my faith in God will be observable in the community; that is the community that is also established in The Creator. Job’s experience teaches us that not everyone in the larger community will understand the direction God may be taking in one’s life.
I’ve discovered faith is God doing or providing for me what I can’t do or provide, while I’m focused on doing and providing what I can do and provide. Together we accomplish His purposes. There are seasons when all I see is my activity in this arrangement, but that doesn’t mean that God is not active simply because I don’t see it. Trust is knowing God is active in my life even when it is hidden from view.
The hand of God moves invisibly in the lives of men.
Amen amen amen
If I am out of order here, let me know, but I “need” (felt need?)to share the love YHWH has shown me today through Skip’s message and your kind responses which have totally blessed me. This is a website Skip linked to recently that has some good stuff. I happened to visit there today and YHWH sent this as a refreshing sip of cool water. Whether it is a word of positive encouragement or negative instruction (rebuke, correction), He is doing a wonderful work in the lives of His chosen. I pray we will Shema the Word of YHWH that abides forever even when we don’t think He hears us.
Something to consider:)
http://119ministries.com/blog-119/view/5073/these-are-the-days-of-eli
Mary,
I love Brad Scott, the writer of that article. So true…so true. Everything is great till man messes it up.
Wow. Today’s word hit home. The comments from Mary and Robin could have been from me as well. The day Skip called to check in with me, I was feeling very alone in my walk. I was feeling without community, and longing to be around like minded believers. I’ve been in church for many years and in a Messianic church too. I don’t fit in either anymore. We’ve stopped going to church. We ARE that family. My main reason for not pushing it anymore is that the last few times I’ve been, I wanted to scratch my eyeballs out. The lack of meat and anemic teachings were no longer acceptable to me. I could no longer just sit and smile when the pastor mislead the congregation with anti-Torah messages. However, most messianic congregations make the non-Jew feel like a second class citizen. If they are God’s feast, they are MY feasts! If it is HIS Sabbath, then it is MY sabbath. Ok, off my soap box…
I wrestle with this new place of wilderness. However, it helps to know I’m not alone when I read the comments above. He teaches, equips, and prepares in the wilderness. I am thankful my mom and sister are right there with me. They are my fellowship right now. I am enjoying being back in this community as well.
Blessings!
Thanks Skip, I really needed to hear this.
—The great irony of faith is the absence of God in the lives of the righteous.–
The great irony of faith is the “apparent” absence of G-d in the lives of the righteous..
G-d, my friends, is never “absent.” (Ever.) “In Him we live and move and have our being”- where shall we go to escape G-d? (Ask Jonah..)
David came around to “see it” – [It is] good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.” (Psalm 119.71) “It is good for me?” Strange.. “no pain- no gain?” It is so. There is no success without suffering.
Please know this: G-d is not punishing us.. Don’t ever even think this way. There is a world of difference between punishment and chastisement. If we are chastised of our Father, it is with a view toward correction and instruction. “Instruct a wise man, and he will be still wiser.” (Proverbs 9.9) How well do we receive correction or even chastisement? (this is meekness) Do we see our suffering (if need be) as one of G-d’s greatest gifts? It is one of the ways we may know G-d is our Father and that He loves us! What does our instruction manual say? “Whom the LORD loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives!” (Hebrews 12.6) Ouch!! Are we listening now? or do we need to “kick this up a notch?” “Bam!”
Remember the story of the perfect mule? He does pretty good, you just have to get his attention (as with a two-by-four upside the head!). One thing to be grateful for, -G-d never swats a fly with a hammer, His chastisement is perfect and perfectly suited for each of us. We who are parents understand, -each child is different. Some of our children we can guide with our eye, with just a look- these are the ones who are “tuned in” to dad (or mom). Others require a more (ahem) intense approach – (up to and including…???) What will it take for our Master/Teacher to get our full and undivided attention? Pain does have a way of focusing our attentions. Are we listening now or does He (if need be) “gather” our attention?
We can always count on the mercy of our Lord to guide us as we walk with and work for Him. I do join my prayer with that of others, that the Almighty will guide and prosper your efforts in South Africa. That He will bring you back safely to your family.
Mary and Robin – I too am frustrated and haven’t fully resolved my frustration of wanting to be a part of a community of like-minded believers. I am not sure if this is a proper way to look at the situation but I take comfort (for now) in the take-away of Yeshua’s conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4). If ever there was someone who was most likely ostracized (lacking a worshiping community), this woman would be that person. First of all, she was a woman. Second, she was a “Scarlet letter” woman because of her adulterous life-style. Third, she was a Samaritan. Yeshua met this individual on each and every one of these levels. But the dialogue turned from something personal to this woman and to the manner in which she was to change her thinking about “worship” and specifically, worship in community and at a particular place. Samaritans worshiped at one place (“on this mountain”); Jews worshiped in Jerusalem. But Yeshua changes her focus from “where” she was to worship in community to Who she was to worship. No longer a place…but a Person. The Father thru His Son. After this encounter with Yeshua, the Samaritan woman returns to her own community (Samaritan town) and many of her “own” believe in Yeshua “because of her testimony”. Yeshua ultimately “stays” with these “Samaritans” and because of this , many more become believers…..From this, I no longer view the local “community” or “church” as being the predominating feature of where I go to worship (me-centered and focused) but rather as the local “community” or “church”, where after my own personal encounter with Yeshua, I now go to serve and to testify so that others might believe (others-centered). In other words, the “church” that I call “my community” is nothing more than my own personal mission field. I join it not for uniformity sake but rather I join in it to effect change….It isn’t what I would hope it could or would be, but it is a place I go to worship the Person of Christ Jesus by serving Him and by being a witness to and hopefully drawing others to the true worship and service of Yeshua. I suppose what I am saying is I’m not leaving one “church” in favor of another “church” or with the idea that I am going to keep searching for the perfect “church” of like-minded believers but rather, I am sticking with my “samaritan” community and hoping that through the profession and modeling of my faith, others will be gently influenced to consider the true worship and service of Yeshua and believe in Him. This may not be ideal, but this is where I am at in my thinking….On the perfect “church” front, I am also reminded of the Transfiguration where after Yeshua appears with the Prophet Elijah on one side and Moses representing the Law on the other side, Peter is quick to want to make that “place” the “abode” (tent) of God – his own personal and perfect “church”. Before he can set up his “church” walls of this “perfect” church, Elijah and Moses evaporate and a voice from the Father says, “This is my Son…listen to Him”. So with all of its failings, I remain committed to the community our family calls “church” recognizing that it isn’t perfect and it isn’t my ideal church of like-minded believers…but it is a place where I can worship Yeshua, be a testimony for Him and serve the Lord by drawing others to the true worship and service of Him….I don’t know if this makes sense and it doesn’t entirely remove my frustration, but it is where I am at in my thinking about this issue of “church.” At least for the moment.
Dear David,
Can’t wait to meet you in person soon in Dayton. And the Samaritan woman conversation is analyzed in detail in my book Jesus Said To Her.
Skip – My wife and I are both extremely excited about your visit to Dayton (and we are not alone)! I will wait for your visit to get an autographed copy of your book :). For those of you who want to share in this excitement personally, mark your calendars for June 17-18 (Frid evening 7-9:30pm)(Sat 9am-5pm) and then e-mail me at salyerfam@mac.com and I will send you a brochure with all of the details.
Yes, David, I think I understand where you are at this point in considering the church today. I wrestled with this for many years, even before realizing the need to connect with my Hebrew origin as a believer. For me, I was often in agony desiring to be set free and would drift in and out of “frustration” and discouragement, yet with an anticipation of deliverance. I would be caught in the crossfire of dodging the Sword of the Word as it would convict my heart and the fiery darts being thrown at me by my “elders” who knew better than I and were attempting to keep me from deception. WHEW!!! I was weary and heavy laden for sure. Yeshua kept me during that time and will keep me throughout…blessed is He and blessed am I because of who He is!
Please know, I am not condemning all Sunday church goers. I have no right to condemn them because I do not know their hearts. I know some wonderful people who attend Sunday church and I also know some big time players that are in it for the “benefits” and feelings of righteousness that comes with following tradition and looking good in the eyes of others. I have wondered if that was not one of the issues Christ addresses with the Samaritan woman…worshipping the wells of the early church fathers, rather than YHWH of the fathers. Yet I also do not consider everyone to be apostate that currently attends Sunday Church. We never truly know the hearts of men as Christ does!
None the less, we all must give an account one day for our actions and I do realize that no one person is responsible for my actions but me. He knows our hearts and He knows who belong to Him…Sabbath and Sunday! YHWH bless you!
David- what a beautiful testimony! Please accept a “cyber-hug” from me, my brother. Worship is not in a place, but in a person! Amein! We (I hope) are all coming to the “place” of recognizing and realizing it is all about Him! Worship Him. Honor Him. Praise Him. Witness for Him. Live for Him. Sing to and for Him! Am I Christ-centric? lol! Absitively, Posalutely! Christ is the center, the compass and the circumference. If we are not Christ-centric, we are eccentric (off-center). Whether Saturday, Sunday, or Monday, waiting for a bus, or washing our car- our focus should be on the Living, abiding, incarnated Word of G-d, revealed in full to all of us through the written word(s) of G-d. Yeshua is LORD!! “Both” of the living and of the dead. “Both” of Heaven and of earth. “Both” of the Jew and of the Gentile. Salvation- “to the Jew first, and also to the Goy! “For G-d so loved the world.. ” Amein!
Skip, Carl, David , Et Al,
Your hearts are over-brimming and I know their Source!
“How lovely is Your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty.” Psalm 84:1