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Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He will do it. Psalm 37:5 NASB
He will do it– It wasn’t supposed to be like this. All this study. All this investigation, debate, dialogue. All this struggle to align with the perspective of the author and audience when reading God’s word. We weren’t supposed to end up feeling overwhelmed by the sheer amount of material to digest or the widening gap between the trauma of this world and the nature of the Creator. It wasn’t supposed to end with exhaustion or confusion or apathetic resignation. It was supposed to lead to a vibrant enthusiasm for the divine, a constantly renewed energy to live out the plan of restoration and a deeper compassion for others. It wasn’t supposed to lead to a profound sense of inadequacy and the crushing despair that we will ever really understand what’s happening.
David gives us a formula for simple faith. gālal and bāṭaḥ–commit and trust. He might as well have written the lyrics to “Trust and Obey.” According to David’s view of simple faith, commitment and trust are all that’s needed for God to act. “He will do it”—hû-yâ’âsê(h). Maybe we don’t really need the “it” in this sentence. David claims that simple faith will result in God’s action. What He does is irrelevant. The claim is that He will do something, and that is supposed to be enough.
But, alas, it doesn’t seem that simple faith produces anything except naivety or ignorance, or perhaps a speedy denial of the tragic consequences of andralamousia. The world is in desperate trouble. Any student of history can see the writing on the wall (no divine finger necessary). But the world has always been in trouble and, as Heschel notes, history is a nightmare. Maybe it is andralamousia that is so disturbing. Maybe it’s just that I don’t know. I can’t know. There is just too much to absorb, too much to master, too much to contemplate. Simple faith is something like innocence. Once lost, unrecoverable.
How about compromise? Maybe that will work. Maybe I can just pretend things are fine (secretly acknowledging that they aren’t) and live in a kind of compromised world where my faith operates some of the time and my skeptical despair slips through now and then. Nope. No good. Compromise is a concession between mutual victims. And since I am compromising with myself, I am both victims at the same time. This is like claiming that God decides to forget what He knows beforehand in order that we can operate our free will. Doesn’t work. Never has. No, there has to be something more than the logic (or illogic) of our doctrines if we’re going to follow in David’s footsteps.
Maybe we need to spend more time thinking and feeling what it must have been like for David to trust God. He had plenty of trials, lots of turmoil, significant sins, family collapse—all and more of the stuff we find so demoralizing. And yet, he can say, “hû-yâ’âsê(h).” That’s hard for me to understand. Why didn’t he give up? Why didn’t he resign himself to apathetic acquiescence? Whatever the reasons, he didn’t. Perhaps that’s the answer we need. Maybe we won’t ever really know the “why” of faith. Maybe all we need to know is that someone else, just like us, persevered—and so can we. Maybe hû-yâ’âsê(h) isn’t about God doing something, but rather about God’s invisible hand getting us through this so we can also say, hû-yâ’âsê(h).
Ah, but then I look out across the beach and see this, and I have hope again. Not the kind of rational compartment hope, the hope that comes from having the “right” answers. No, this kind of hope is more like feeling the morning sun on your face. It’s warm, inviting—and it hints at a God who is still working His miracles even if I can’t see Him or them. It’s a hope that makes me feel optimistic. It reminds me of Heschel, “I am an optimist against my better judgment.”[1]
Topical Index: hû-yâ’âsê(h), He will do it, despair, hope, Psalm 37:5
[1]Maybe you will take the time to listen to him: https://bobmschwartz.com/2018/02/05/abraham-joshua-heschel-i-am-an-optimist-against-my-better-judgment/
I’d rather be an optimist against my better judgment than to be a pessimist because of someone else’s bitter judgement.
Amen and AMEN
Why was the Bible written? To increase our information or to increase our faith? What increases faith? For me, it is seeing how it worked in the lives of others. Example. Witness. Even a small child who only has a few ‘ fact hooks’ to hang info on can be convicted by truth and inspired by example. What are you trying to get out of your Bible?
Thanks causes me to remember the farthest 24in is from the head to the heart, it starts with me!!!
Van Morrison sings (I believe) of Aristotle and and the trouble one has when they are close in mind but distant in heart from Messiah on his album Avalon sunset. “I saw the light of ancient Greece standing near the Son. If my heart could do the thinking and my head begin to feel, would I see the world in a new light and know what i truly real”.
Skip, I love how you can verbalize all the jumbled thoughts that run through my head. So beautifully written
Thank you for the link to listen to Abraham Joshua Heschel. And thank you for the sunrise.
Isa 25:6-9 NIV- On this mountain YHVH Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine–the best of meats and the finest of wines. On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign YHVH will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. YHVH has spoken. In that day they will say, “Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is YHVH, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”
Thank you, YHVH. Thank you, Yeshua. Salvation is rescue from death. HalleluYah
I have seen it… I have experienced it… I know it to be true. He will do it. Be still and know… He is God.
Hitting the nail squarely on the head yet agin with these questions. Yet I hear the David in my DNA, crying out. “I have learned to calm my soul like a wheend child on my mother’s knee”. ” I do not concern my self with things to great for me” “We enter His gates with thanksgiving …and His Courts with Praise”…All these speak to me of what Paul suggested “take captive every thought and subject it to Christ”. I think David accessed the mind of Messiah by the exclusion of his own rational processes. Takeing our thoughts captive in trusting obidiance to the will, way and Spirit of God is our peace, our hope of glory and our victory over the alternative. We do enter the gates of the Kingdom of YeHoVaH with thanksgiving . We transform the stuff of our mean, beggerly existance in this broken world by gratitude in the provision of God to be found in our trubble . We translate ourselves into the Kingdom of YeHoVaH by keeping our minds hearts and thoughts firmly fixed on Him. It’s that easy, and that hard. ..My absolute favorite David-ism is “my enamies have become food for me”. He has so fixed his heart on God’s provision that he is nurished in the struggles, he feeds on the battles, now that is a man of faith, a warrior for life in God, ” A man after God’s own heart”.
” …It wasn’t supposed to lead to a profound sense of inadequacy and the crushing despair that we will ever really understand what’s happening.”
Perhaps it was, Skip. I was led to that place decades ago. While you, and others no doubt, may be seeking understanding of what’s happening (and that’s altogether ok), in my experience I only saw myself being destroyed along with ‘everyone’. That was my andralamousia, and I had no power to halt/alter anything; I had and felt a desperate need to be rescued.
That began what led to my encounter with Messiah. My encounter preceded my walk with Him. It seems to me that though our mental/educational processing gives understanding and explanation for much, it nevertheless does not adequately answers that for which our innermost being yearns. The response from heaven comes to us as a gift when the heart is taken to the place where it’s cry reaches our Creator’s ear. Only Yah/Yeshua is able to lovingly ‘engineer’ such a feat on our behalf, for we resist our Creator more readily than we know! But They know the deceptiveness of the human heart, and patiently wait for They cannot give their pearls to swine….
The Apostles were able to “turn the world upside down” because during their discipleship years with Yeshua they lived with, encountered, experienced… the Son of Elohim, the Anointed One living with them as a human. It left them oftentimes baffled, bewildered, frightened,… and, after the crucifixion, totally undone! Andralamousia?
Only then were they ready to hear the real message from the risen Yeshua who then spent 40 days with them. Only then were they ready to offer themselves. Only then could they be anointed for a holy task even if it meant persecution and death as was their Master’s fate.
Again, imo, we have all tried very hard (myself included), to understand with definitiveness (our Western Greek gift), that which can only be known by revelation and encounter, because our Creator is a Spirit. We try because we have the need to be in control (a gift from the first Adam, imo). Only the Master can bring us to the end of ourselves, and that with our cooperation. He forces nothing and forces no one. Then, and only then He surprises us with the ease (not = pain-freeness) of the journey.
When one is dead, he can’t be killed, neither does he care as much, (eventually not at all!) about his reputation for he learns (yes, learns in the vicissitudes of life), to live ONLY to do his Master’s and Father’s will. This was PERFECTLY demonstrated by Yeshua and His disciples saw it in live colour!
To this day, Yeshua takes hold of those who are willing (as were those disciples He chose), and as He said (paraphrasing), the gates of hell cannot prevail against what He sets out to do! The question is – will we listen to His voice and become His disciples BEFORE we decide to run?
Greek education has taught us to be ‘objective’ and to listen to many voices, but He still speaks in the ‘inner chamber’ with those who are His and who have accepted His yoke, and there is no mistaking the Voice. The request from Messiah can be hard and painful (as was His own Father’s request of Him, unique though it was), but He and our Father gives the needed comfort and assurance.
It is altogether a journey and we are here to encourage each other as we embark on it. We put aside cynicism, fears, … (even acknowledging and confessing same). We will not be afraid for He who has promised is trustworthy.
The disciples had 3? years; Moses, I think 40…; Abraham…; Jacob…; Joseph…; David…; even Yeshua Himself had to be discipled; and of course Shaul’s 14? years in Arabia. All these had to be prepared for their particular task; the same for us I believe.
No one finally runs for Yah without/before being processed. So as we share, talk, gain knowledge and wisdom from each other, and listen to our respective teacher(s) – thanks to you Skip for your remarkable blog and invaluable contribution to our lives – let us be sure we are being discipled by The Discipler…
Arnella, you painted such a beautiful picture! I felt like I ate an entire delicious meal. You made my day. Thank you.
Thanks Laurita, you are very encouraging, and have always been that way for Michael and I! We owe a lot to u. ?
Arnella, Such a gracious way you have shared such a profound truth. Time and tides can not erode the love and faithfulness of God to complete his work in us. We can resist, deny or ignore him but it will not hinder, only delay his purposes. Some times I think bitter, proud or stubborn hearts and minds are the hardest thing in the creation…But Yehovah has what it takes to deal even with them for he knows them better than we .
Mark, it is interesting that YOU have commented on my response! It is YOUR comment up above that inspired me to write; I had even begun initially as a response to you!! I always find your comment to be a blessing. Thanks.
Your discourse the perfect description of my walk of late. Not sure that I am on board with the conclusion, yet. Have always loved the psalm. Regardless of faith, we can do nothing but trust, as we are seemingly helpless pawns in the game. Our faith is our hope…our hope is this faith, rather cyclical, and scary.