Zeal For Your House: School encouragement letter on Psalm 69
"I will praise God's name in song
and glorify Him with thanksgiving." -- Psalm 69:30
If that's not a verse for November, I don't know what is! Just reading it, you get that warm glow of idealized family reunion and edible bounty. However! Always, when Googling, say, "Bible verses about giving thanks," look at the context.
Psalm 69:31: This will please the Lord more than an ox, more than a bull with its horn and hooves."
Sweet! Who doesn't love OT references to God preferring sincere gratitude to sacrifices? Let's go backwards.
Psalm 69:29: "But as for me, afflicted and in pain -- may your salvation, God, protect me."
Uh-oh. Much as I'd like to say that "afflicted and in pain" basically described my mood this afternoon when I realized it was going to be cold all week, I can tell already that we're heading into darker territory. Time to go to the beginning of the psalm.
"Save me, O God,
for the waters have come up to my neck.
I sink in the miry depths,
where there is no foothold . . ." --Psalm 69: 1-2
The psalmist goes on to describe how he is abandoned, despised, ridiculed (when even the drunks start belting unflattering ditties about you, you know you're in trouble) and generally miserable. He pleads with God for merciless vengeance upon his enemies and merciful salvation for himself and all those who seek God. He then thanks God with all his heart for God's love and mercy and salvation.
Now, one way of looking at this would be, "Hey, if this guy can thank God when he's this afflicted, what excuse do you have?" Sort of like that "Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice!" moment I think we've all had when we realize with cringing embarrassment that even though Paul wrote that advice in an uncomfortable prison cell, we have trouble following it in the cozy car in the morning just because we're late to work or because the baby's crying or because the person in front of us apparently read the "60 MPH" sign as "6.0."
Psalm 69:5: "You, God, know my folly; my guilt is not hidden from you."
So that's one way of looking at it. But, as fun as wallowing in guilt and self-recrimination is, I think there's a bigger picture. See, the psalmist is in trouble because of his faith. People despise him for having it, and he, in turn feels alienated from those he loves best because he can't ignore the unfair jibes leveled against his God.
Psalm 69:7-9: "For I endure scorn for your sake, and shame covers my face. I am a foreigner to my own family, a stranger to my mother's children; for zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those who insult you fall on me."
(Side note: If "zeal for your house" is ringing your "waaaaait a minute" bells, good work. This verse is quoted in John 2:17 after Jesus drives the money-changers out of the temple.)
Have you ever felt this way? At a gathering, on the Internet, at the dinner table? That awful, awkward moment when someone derides Christ or Christianity or Christians and you feel it like a dart you cannot ignore --zeal for your house consumes me-- and know that whether you speak up or stay silent you are making a choice with consequences and you cannot be silent? I had a pastor once who was disowned when he told his dad he'd converted to Christianity. He knew he'd be disowned, my pastor, but he told his dad anyway.
Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck.
The agony the psalmist feels is the agony of someone who stood up for what was right and lost everything because of it. His hope is in his conviction that what he stood up for was right and that God will save him.
Psalm 69:16: "Answer me, Lord, out of the goodness of your love; in your great mercy turn to me."
There are consequences to faith and courage; the psalmist opens with many of the worst of them. But there is joy, too: the joy in knowing that God is greater than the miseries of the world, that He rescues his people, and that the ones who are most downtrodden he takes the most care in raising up. "I will praise God's name in song and glorify Him with thanksgiving," exults the psalmist, not because of what God has done for him so far in the psalm, but because of what he knows God will do. He trusts in God's salvation, not only for himself but for all God's people.
It is hard not to be afraid. It is hard to speak up when we know we risk the good opinion of people we love or the comfort of an agreeable atmosphere. No one wants to be mocked. No one wants to be scorned. No one wants to be the weirdo knocking over tables in the temple. But we serve a God who values the personal sacrifices of obedience and gratitude above the physical offerings of animal sacrifice. We serve a God who does not forget his people, whose rescue we can count on even when we cannot ourselves see a way out. So let zeal for His house consume you, and trust Him with the consequences.
"Let heaven and earth praise him,
the seas and all that move in them,
for God will save Zion
and rebuild the cities of Judah.
Then people will settle there and possess it;
the children of his servants will inherit it,
and those who love his name will dwell there." -- Psalm 69:34-36
Wishing you a day better than the psalmist’s, but a faith and courage no less stalwart,
Lily Belladonna Took