Emotional Wasteland
“O LORD, rebuke me not in Your wrath, and chasten me not in Your burning anger.” Psalm 38:1 NASB
Burning anger – Can you identify with David’s emotional state or are you so far away from a God who is enraged at sin that you can’t even imagine what it would be like to fear the consequences? Most of us today have been seduced by a glacial shift in our concept of God. Slowly, over centuries of erosion, we have lost sight of the God who hates sin. We have replaced the God whose very presence on the mountain brought a thick cloud of terrifying darkness and horrible flames with a God of mercy and infinite grace. We have “moved on” to a God who could never contemplate the destruction of human beings simply because they didn’t happen to act according to His instructions. After all, those metaphors in the Tanakh are clearly outdated. Today God is our “higher power,” resting comfortably removed from the tragic events of this world until we mount an effort to enlist His assistance for the benevolence of our kind. God has successfully completed His anger management therapy and is now the kindly old Santa Claus who brings good gifts to his enlightened children. Tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, wars, famines, even environmental disasters are uniformly viewed as unholy twists of fate. They cannot be the handiwork of an angry God because God cannot be God if He is judgmental and vengeful. God must always be the perfect, loving Father (as we define the concept). Would you dare to suggest that the destruction of a city or an entire country was the sign of God’s anger over sin? Only if you wish to be dismissed as a fanatic or worse. In at least one regard we have something to learn from the Islamic Jihad. God has no reason whatsoever to tolerate our laziness about sin. And when God gets angry, watch out!
David sees the enormity of the consequences of sin. He sees it on a national scale and on a very personal scale. His awareness propels him into emotional despair. If we have never touched the foul stench of our own depravity, how can we celebrate the incalculable love of a God who would redeem us? If we have never confronted the caged beast within, how can we express eternal gratitude for the God who removed our chains? Thankfulness is directly proportionate to desperation. In a world that does everything possible to avoid emotional trauma, there is little room of spiritual good news. Perhaps that’s why Jesus sought those who lived on the edge of civilized society. They could not escape desperation. They were ready to hear a message of hope. But we are different. Until the twists of fate disrupt our carefully crafted myths of control, we are crippled by our affluence. We take Wellbutrin instead of weeping. We buy Prozac as a substitute for prostration. The Bible for us might as well contain the verse, “For he who has much, little will be understood.”
“God, grant me poverty of soul, and if I cannot find the desperation for You within me, then bring me to desperation another way.” Could you pray such a prayer?
Topical Index: desperation, Psalm 38:1
I see a direct correlation to the revealed nature of YHVH and our individual and collective maturity. I wasn’t ready to engage here until I was 50+ and to learn that I wasn’t “human” wasn’t the easiest pill to swallow. Fifteen years later I see the lost childhood where physical, emotional, and relational maturity could have played out. Each covenant expression has with it relational responsibilities within which relational capacities are developed. I can see how human is the foundation for friend, friend for companion, companion for marriage, marriage for family, family for household, household for clan then tribe, nation, nations etc. Just as we might shield our children from overwhelming emotional spaces it seems appropriate that David (and others) be viewed in the context of faith; relational covenant responsibility. It’s not just the expressive nature of YHVH that we lost; its the relational intimacy that YHVH and we lost.
Thank you for this.
Good Word today especially when added to those of previous days is helping form a bigger picture of what God is saying and what he is like outside of the current picture that is being painted of him in our church culture. We easily forget that it is said “to whom much is given, much is required”. We have grown hard of hearing due to itching ears! The grace that is being touted eventually eliminates any requirements or expectations. Paul said, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus “. We are to throw off any weight or the sin that does so easily beset us and run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith ….who for the joy, endured the cross!
What about Yeshua our intercessor?
He didn’t change God’s wrath, but He fulfilled
the plan that God designed to mitigate it.
“…because he poured out his life unto death,
and he was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession
for the transgressors.” Isaiah 53:12
Doesn’t that offer the truly repentant soul a far more peaceful
relationship with our Creator? True, we still have to work out our
salvation “with fear and trembling”, but we don’t have to do it alone.
Skip…I hope you realize that..your past mistakes, and how you’ve been willing to confront them, is one of the ways YHVH is so effective using you to help advance his Kingdom. My thanks to you…and all praises to Him.
Thanks. I often don’t feel that way and yours is a good reminder.
You’re welcome, my friend. ??
We run from God at the same rate we run from ourselves. It is impossible to face one without facing the other! To honestly look at ourselves is to realize that we agree with the Creator: our entire design agrees with Him. It’s not that He is wrathful (demanding justice) and we are not: we are demanding justice just as much as He is! We are angry, too. All of us. Even the ones who don’t think they are: they are the ones who are so very angry they had to bury it even deeper. We want love just as much as He does, and justice (justification) is what restores love to both of us. To ignore our own wrath is to ignore our own insistence for justice. All sin destroys justice, which is the balance of relationship.
I was taught all too well to hide anger. I was taught by implication that justice was not for me because of that. Anger is about justice!
When we can face our own wrath at not being loved, we can face the wrath of our Lover, for we are both mad about the same thing – we just don’t know it. It was a huge shock for me to get to my angry place and find that God had been there before me, being angry FOR ME, until I could screw up the courage to deal with my need for justice myself.
He’s on our side! Let’s hurry up and agree with Him: let’s hurry to kiss and make up when His wrath is “kindled but a little”. His wrath is my clue that I am being snowed. When I get angry (desperate), too, we can work together to fix the problem.
David went deeper than merely acknowledging his sin (great as it was), he valiantly plumbed the depths of evil that dwelled in his heart. His desperation was based not just on what he did, but on what he knew he was capable of doing. It is our dilemma too if we are honest and seeking Him with our whole heart; for then we see our capacity to sin is as boundless as David’s and the essence of that dank pit is unspeakable.
The roots of our salvation go only as deep as our understanding of our need and our need is measured by our despair. If so, maybe we should pay less attention to our sins of commission and omission and pay more heed to our unlimited capacity to sin and see that we can sin greatly with malice and glee.
But maybe it is not that your potential sins are so dark and dangerous that you cannot with resolve and practice bear to stare them down, but perhaps what scares you most is your fear that YHWH is unwilling to forgive you of your worst potential depravity. The unknown potential sin becomes the probable unpardonable sin.
Either way, it is in the process of digging deep that we discover we have unearthed those deep roots that the axe that John the Baptist made reference to can finally strike at the “root of our tree”. Once cut we can then begin to bear good fruit, but not till then. I hear the axeman coming.
I really love that! Perhaps it’s not that we think He can’t forgive our “worst potential depravity”: it’s that we think we can’t forgive ourselves. Why do we think that? Isn’t it because we don’t want to set ourselves against the yetzer hara’s choicest and dearest self image? Aren’t we still betting, in the deepest, blackest parts of our hearts, that somehow, someway, we are still able to, like Skip says, make our own rules? If we face that potential depravity, don’t we have to go up against our favorite idol (rule maker) of all?
I disagree with the underlined sentence. Skip said ‘Thankfulness is directly proportionate to DESPERATION.’ I would change it to: ‘Thankfulness is directly proportionate to one’s sense of ENTITLEMENT.
I can think immediately of people who are never thankful for anything. There is a verse that says: A leech has two daughters. Give and Give. It is COMPLICATED because I realize now after many years of trying to figure out what causes people to be so self-focused, so totally ruthless. They have been harmed physically (MENTALLY) by Big Pharma and the CDC. What hope is there when one’s brain has actually been damaged? I would say there isn’t any. They will never CARE because they aren’t able to CARE. Without conscience. They lie. Blame. Feel no remorse except for not getting more. No sense of responsibility. No ability to reason.
Later he said ‘We are crippled by our affluence.’ Again I disagree (could be true but not the cause.). ‘We are crippled by FALSE TEACHINGS and FALSE PRACTICES. Brainwashing is powerful. Add brain damage and it’s a hopeless cause to get people to see what the lies are.