The Throne
For You aremy rock and my fortress; for Your name’s sake You will lead me and guide me. Psalm 31:3 NASB
My rock and my fortress– Have we relegated the stronghold of God to heaven? Have we forced God to provide only a spiritual sanctuary after we’ve finished the earthly course? Or is God really our Rock and our Fortress right here, right now? Oswald makes a telling comment. “If we give way to self-pity and indulge in the luxury of misery, we banish God’s riches from our own lives and hinder others from entering into His provision. No sin is worse than self-pity, because it obliterates God and puts self-interest upon the throne.”[1]
David’s song doesn’t begin with his feelings of rejection, his traumatic circumstances or his emotional turmoil. Those might be implied in this opening line, but the real focus here is on YHVH’s character. Just like David, we might need a safe haven, but if we are going to follow David’s lead, we won’t fall into the trap of thinking that the safe haven is some spiritual realm separated from our physical reality. Rocks and fortresses are present-day protection.
Let’s get practical. God provides shelter. It is His character to do so. How that happens still needs investigation, but if we start looking anywhere else for real safety, we will soon discover that Chambers’ description fits us. In this world, only YHVH offers complete safety. Most of us would agree. We know that all other people have the potential to fail us, even if they don’t mean to. We know that God’s character never changes. But knowing this doesn’t mean we live accordingly. The problem is simple: we don’t see how many of the events in our lives are examples of God’s protection. In fact, we see just the opposite, as if He allows all kinds of difficult and terrible things to occur when He is perfectly capable of preventing them. The problem is maintaining the perspective that He is safe when life seems so uncertain.
David helps us get oriented. His opening thought exclaims that, despite his own circumstances, God is solid. I might feel tossed about by life, but God remains true to His character no matter how I feel about it. In other words, before I start examining my situation, I choose this perspective: God is reliable. He cares about me. I can trust Him. Once I have that in place, I’m ready to evaluate my situation. Without these assumptions, I will drift toward self-pity. It’s inevitable. So it comes down to a choice. I choose either 1) to look at my life as a manifestation of God’s reliability or 2) to look at my life as an expression of self-determination. Amazingly, and counter-intuitively, neitherof these alternatives actually depends on me, as we will see.
Topical Index: rock, fortress, perspective, reliability, safe, Psalm 31:3
Safely,
ignorant my life flows by,
missing the opportunity
of more often, to cry
and lift up a voice
and twirl in a dance
of grateful
Remembrance
that my life should be thanks.
Love to all.
I think I (we, maybe) reason all too shallow to see how God’s reliability might be so closely entwined with our own self-determination while still honoring the free-will proposition. That is, while counter-intuitive, might they be so indelibly woven into YHVH such that it is near impossible for us to discern the distinction? We are left to wonder in awe and fall back on gratitude. Also, it flies in the face of the grace/law implications that traditional Christianity teaches so staunchly by insisting the two ideas are opposed to one another in that one lives and the other is dead. We also (I, maybe) are baffled at the skill, ability and wisdom YHVH possesses in bringing his plans to fruition all the while incorporating and allowing our free will to function. I always laugh at the intricate precision that movie and TV shows portray the well thought out plots of a con team in perpetrating their swindles on dumb, unsuspecting victims. It seems we have no trouble believing these convoluted and near impossibilities, yet doubt YHVH’s ability to actually pull off inconceivable intricacies of our lives so that “all things work together for good.” Romans 8:28
Thanks, Skip, for pressing the point. Made me think a little more deeply and critically.
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Thank you.
I have become suspicious that trouble in the world is designed to persuade us to turn loose of all the false comforters we employ; self pity (yep! check) so often being the king of that mountain.
God looks unreliable (to me, anyway) to the exact extent I think something else looks reliable. I have done the math.
I don’t have the ability to do ANYTHING ‘right’ (disaster-educated) I have learned, to my sorrow and humiliation, but that knowledge has simultaneously set me free from thinking that I have to! Halleluah!
If love does not operate through me I am sunk. But, because He is a Rock, I can safely let go and let Him. Deceptively simple answer to all situations, yet so hard to get all the false comforters out of the way so that I can.
“In this world, only YHVH offers complete safety.”
Nehemiah Gordon says in Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence;- “The name of Yehovah, YHVH, is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and they are safe” Proverbs 18:10, like a keep, a central fortification of last refuge in a castle such as Nimrod’s Castle in Israel or St. Paul’s Chapel 300 yards from ground zero with a 218 ft steeple that survived 9/11 complete with a sculpture of Mount Sinai and the Ten Commandments, the inscription above it in Hebrew text is YHVH.
The building served as a rest area for rescue and recovery workers and a makeshift doctors office for burned feet while the name Yehovah maintained watch amidst a layer of ash and soot as some workers used the holy water at teh entrance to wash the toxic dust from their eyes.
Sometimes the rocks are high and mighty and the next minute they are dust and death while the only “complete safety” remains secure forever.
God got it Wrong Last Tuesday
It wasn’t one of my better days.
The world was going to Hell in a handcart
and I was doing the pushing.
I found I was worshipping Democracy.
We, ‘the people,’ really did have
the government we deserved —
we didn’t deserve much.
Corruption was rife; greed was rampant.
Platitudes were proliferating all over the place.
I cried, ‘God!
Show me the sin at the root of this evil.’
The whisper came back,
Self pity
SELF PITY?
Yes
Yours