Evidence (2)

I certainly believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the Lord.  Psalm 27:13-14 NASB

Living – Not tomorrow!  No, the psalmist is not hoping that somehow he will see something that points to God’s goodness in the future.  Oh, it’s translated that way.  “I would see.”  Future conditional.  “I want to believe this.  I hope to believe this.  I’m ready to believe this.  Now, God, just show me something so I will see Your goodness.”  No, that doesn’t work.  Why?  Well, as we discovered yesterday, the psalmist doesn’t operate in an eschatologically projected world, and the verb tenses don’t project something about the future.  I think the verse is more likely, “I was caused to believe that I see the goodness of God.”  Something made me see it—now.  The evidence just piled up and up until I couldn’t help but see it.

That evidence begins with my being alive.  The fact that I am alive is the overwhelming push to recognize God loves me.  If He didn’t, why would I still be here?  I don’t need to see blazing sunsets, astrological signs, physical miracles, or divine rescue plans.  All I need to do is look at myself.  Something so amazing, so fragile, so determined, so animated—how could that be me without the presence of God?  This is not some philosophical argument, some version of Aquinas’ Five Proofs.  It’s very, very personal and practical.  I’m here.  What could be a greater sign of goodness?

When I decided to take another look at this verse, I didn’t expect to draw this conclusion.  I thought about the semantics, the syntax, the gloss in English.  But as I started to write, I saw something else.  I saw the poet expressing the indisputable fact of his existence as a product of God’s goodness.  And I thought, “Yes, that’s right.  I’m here too.”  All those years of living under the Holy Moral Policeman stripped me of the fact of my own being.  I was constantly trying to live up to someone else’s expectations of what it meant to be justifiably alive, as though I needed permission to just be.   The poet corrects this ontology of obligation.  That I am here, writing, means God still cares, always has cared, about me.  He has saved me today!

I have always lived under the sledgehammer of “not good enough.”  You, my wonderful readers, might think that impossible.  You see all I’ve done and imagine that I must feel successful, influential, optimistic.  But you would be wrong.  All of that was an effort to prove that I mattered, that I was worthy.  And none of it was enough.  Those ancient beliefs of unworthiness were planted in me long, long ago.  Comparing myself to my own heroes—Heidegger, Heschel, Sarna, Zornberg, and a host of others—just confirmed my essential inadequacies.  I might handle English fairly well, but children in Italy speak both English and Italian, and often more languages, and at 75 I can barely manage what they do with ease.  You see the problem, I’m sure.  I can never be “good enough” if comparison is the measure.  Brené helped.  So did my therapist—and maybe now this ancient poet.   I am becoming aware (it’s a process) that living is the evidence God provides me of my worth to Him.  I’m listening to Hans Zimmer’s Time (orchestra version CLICK), crying over the deep feeling of growth in that music—a heartbeat behind it all.  Glad to be here.

Oh, and while you’re listening to Time, perhaps you’d like to see it in a way you never imagined.  Here is the work of my friend Bashir Abu Shakra in the Italian Alps.  Audio and visual magic.  CLICK.

Topical Index:  worth, life, goodness, Psalm 27:13-14