Maybe, Maybe Not
And now, Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in You. Psalm 39:7 NASB
For what – Remember that Hebrew has no punctuation. No commas. No question marks. And “Lord” isn’t found in the middle of the sentence. So, is this, “For what do I wait?” or is it, “And now that I wait, Lord, my hope . . .” The Hebrew mâh (maw) can mean “what, how, why” or “when,” but it is also used as an exclamation, not a question. So this verse might be, “And now. Why! I wait for you, Lord.” Lots of choices. Each one has a slightly different nuance. Context is the key.
This is an awkward psalm. It starts out with a statement of David’s internal anguish about saying nothing in the presence of evil. David keeps his mouth shut. As a result, his sorrow grows. He wants to see resolution. He wants the wicked to be punished. But he complains that even though he “takes it,” nothing happens. What does he do? Instead of acting with righteous anger toward these idolaters, he longs for escape. He asks God to show him how long he has to put up with this situation (verse 4, “Make me know my end, how long I will live”). He wants out. Then, like Job, he complains that all of this trauma is really God’s handiwork. God has made life intolerable. God is the one in charge of all the days. Every one of us is walking in a world of darkness. No matter what we do, it all comes to nothing (verse 6).
And now our verse. Is David asking the Lord to show him why he has to wait or is he asking what is the point? His hope is in God, but given the continual presence of evil in this world, what really is the point of continuing? You see, even if we accept the NASB translation, the obvious question in this psalm is, “What good is hope when everything is so terrible and temporary?” Yes, we might claim to “hope in the Lord,” but does that really change things? David goes on in this psalm to say that it is God Himself who is the real source of this catastrophe. He begs God to remove the plague that God has caused. He complains that he is perishing under God’s hand. Isn’t this Job? Isn’t it you and me? By the end of the psalm David is asking for exactly the opposite of what we expect. “Turn Your gaze away from me,” he says. In other words, God’s examination of David is causing enormous, intolerable distress. It is killing him. “Please, God, look some other way. Leave me alone so that I can survive.” That’s not what we thought was the solution. We have been trained to think that we need God’s countenance toward us. We want to experience His loving face. But David is playing Job’s song. If God had not mentioned Job to ha-satan, Job would have never experienced the heartache and trauma. What in the world was God thinking? David’s song doesn’t seem to fit our “God is good” theology. But it certainly fits those times in our lives when we wonder why God is making life so difficult.
And that’s the point. God doesn’t fit the “God is good” theology all the time. His ways are often mysteriously stressful, disheartening trouble and sometimes filled with anxiety. Sometimes it seems as if God is more interested in injury and wounds than peace and joy. Life dishes out all kinds of ordeals. “What am I waiting for, anyway, God? Why don’t you just end this?” That must also be part of our theology.
Topical Index: for what, mah, Job, Psalm 39:7
I think the great desire of the human (as expressed so well by the Greek) is to be ‘outside’ of the drama we know as reality. From one step outside, we don’t have to feel the effects; be faced with trying to solve the unsolvable; be sucked into the maelstrom of the choices of ourselves but also of others; learn the lesson(!); face the consequences; start over when (not if) we fall short; feel the pain of others contained within that drama; be stuck in the timeline. From ‘outside’, unhinged from cause and effect, it is possible to see solutions (because it is easy to solve anything that does not contain us, for some reason!) or render judgment (the most favorite thing of all to do!), or just walk away out of boredom or ennui or disgust. Those are some of the things I have caught myself desperately wishing to do. Starting from the perspective of the self, anyway, I think the Greeks had it about summed up: that is about the only ‘option’ possible.
When I was a child, the thing I wanted most was the attention and approbation of the ‘important’ people in my world: I desired attention – except when I either messed up or wanted to misbehave; then I wanted to NOT be noticed. If I was noticed at those times, I had to take responsibility, but if I wasn’t, I discovered that I could act like nothing had ever happened sometimes and GET AWAY WITH IT.
I can see that the Hebrew perspective did not allow for pretending to be disassociated from reality at convenient times. If God is always watching me, avoiding responsibility is not an option. If God is always looking at me, I have to take responsibility all the time: I cannot pretend to myself or others around me that I was not a part of the drama at that point. If God is my Father and can always see me, then I can never escape for one second the weight of choice; of responsibility for life; for that is my assignment as the conscious steward of all that I have been placed in. I think the human point of view (as exemplified by those Greeks) is all about me looking at me. The point of view I find in the Bible, however, seems to be all about GOD looking at me. Hmm
Life became intolerable to me when I found myself carrying a huge bag of rocks – consequences of choices – and NOTHING in my toolbox was working. I wanted life to be ‘fair’ (or at least ‘possible’ from my perspective). I wanted to ‘start over’; to get a better run at it. I needed a BREAK. I needed not to be noticed for at least as long as it took to drop that bag and run. But the more I looked at what was actually in my bag, the more I realized that there was no hope of ‘escaping’; I was tied to the corpses of all those death choices, no matter what. There was no solid ground on the planet to start FROM – at least from MY perspective, anyway.
Looking back, I know that the only reason I am still here is because God never looked away from me; He kept me in existence because He kept me in His notice continuously. Hope is the stuff that is NOT tied to consequences of choices past. It is God’s faith and hope in me that holds me; not my faith and hope in Him, for mine is so feeble and fickle. Also, mine is inexorably tied to the past, for some reason! I depend upon experience to provide me with the grounds for my hope, but I can depend upon GOD’S experience for His hope in me. Big difference!
I realized at some point that I had been believing so many lies that NOTHING I thought I wanted or needed was really the case. Starting over from His hope in me has been the key to unraveling the snarl sin made of my ball of yarn. His understanding of what I want or need is much more accurate! I also realized that because He never looked away from me I don’t need to look away from Him, which is what I do when I look to self. It took an act of God(!) to get my gaze off of myself and onto Him, but those of us who have been bitten by the serpent like apples on a Tree somewhere have to learn that it is a good thing it is not all about us, but instead is all about Him. All the trouble comes when we attempt to start from our own perspective. All we need to do, like those ancient Israelites that had been bitten, too, is look to Him, and live. There is a better starting point than myself. Whew! What a relief!
“be sucked into the maelstrom of the choices of ourselves but also of others” This brings to mind betrayal by someone we don’t expect betrayal from.e.g. parent. I was already in a vortex of my own making, but when i experienced betrayal by my parents, it was almost the death of me. I had choices after that for sure…just very colored by this. When we trust another human being and that trust is betrayed? I chose bitterness, self-hatred and rage for many years. I find myself in present circumstances wondering why people do the things they do? I don’t have an answer. I’ve trusted a lot and been disappointed many times. But a few years ago, YHVH made himself known to me and you’re right, it’s not about me. I just wish other people that are supposed to remember would remember. How conveniently some forget. I have a choice, right? You have a choice, right? Then why not do the right thing?
I wanted to comment on why I think we seem to identify with the Greeks so much. At the fall of Troy, the Greeks ran, but where did they run to? According to Bill Cooper’s book, After The Flood, Brutus took his followers eventually to Britain, which was named after him. The British have always regarded themselves, it seems, as Greek. (This book is a fascinating historical examination of the Table of Nations found in Genesis 10). If this is the case, no wonder their world view would seem so congenial to us!
After reading Laurita’s response and reflecting on Yeshua’s response in the midst of his trial, the question came to mind, Must we necessarily embrace the theology of David? Is theology about God still being written in our lives? Was David’s way of looking at the world or God perfect, flawed, or simply existential?
On the other hand, “turn your gaze away from me” is only one possible translation. It could be translated, “spare me from your frown.” In other words, David’s choices aren’t meriting God’s approval, and he knew it. Teshuva!
David lived long before Yeshua came to FINISH the work.
Yeshua pointed to a major consequence of His victorious
life that would be available to His followers.
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.
In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome
this world.” Jn 16:33
His point is about His life — and that His life is available to those
who ask for and receive new birth into that life. There’s peace in
that life . . . peace that passes our understanding. And there’s an
assurance that as troubling as this life can be, in His life He overcame
and defeated this world and all that goes with it.
We too, being in Him, can experience the same.
I have some questions. If God is not good all the time, then what did Yeshua mean when He said, “Why do you call me good? There none good except God alone.”
Mk 10:18
What about “all things work together for good to those who know God and are called according to His purpose”?
Maybe our problem is our definition of good. When we are told to die to self, how many of us actually walking this out see it as good? Our minds know God does not lie and His ways are not our ways, but can we ever fully grasp the cost of obedience? Whether the pain is caused by obedience or disobedience, it is still pain. The only difference I see is what the hope of obedience brings vs the distress of disobedience. A faithful God will fulfill His promise toward those who seek Him with all their hearts. He will also discipline those He loves when they are out of line. Aren’t both of these “good”?
Theology = study of God and/or His nature. Who can know the mind of God? Rom. 11:33–34; cf. Job 42:1–6; Ps. 139:6, 17–18; 147:5; Isa. 57:15; 1 Cor. 2:10–11; 1 Tim. 6:13–16
It is a problem of definition. What we think of with the term “good” is not the way the biblical account treats the term. What God does is, by definition, GOOD, whether we view it that way or not. And that’s the point here. Even David’s writings points out that our view of good doesn’t match with the way God sometimes acts.