Dear Elton –
You are shocked, distraught, confused. Now everything appears backward and seems to be coming undone. In a few short days you’ve been set back, far back even from where you started. You’re worse off than you’ve ever been.
Before this you could have easily bought into the concept of one step back, two steps forward…but what’s happened recently calls into question your whole notion of progress. You thought you generally understood how things were going, who/what was reliable…now you’re questioning every assumption and everybody.
I suppose your thoughts cycle between How naive I was! How humiliating this is! What effect will this have on our kids?! How angry I am!
And, most searingly: how can I ever trust again in a loving Heavenly Father who supposedly knew all along this wickedness was taking place, but who stood back and simply let it run its course… until it rose up to crush me?
May I direct your attention to Psalm 74?
An opening wail launches the rest of the psalm: O God, why do you cast us off forever? The evidence that we’ve indeed, been cast off, is a smoldering temple. Invaders swept in, destroyed the temple, and by that same action savaged our faith. We thought this place was sacred…protected. But no – the finely wrought furniture of God’s meeting place has been destroyed with the same abandon as those who swing axes through thick underbrush. After, the flames.
God’s stated commitment to us, Israel? Can’t see signs of that anymore. What we do see: after invaders pledged to “utterly subdue Israel” they turned around and… utterly subdued Israel. So, yes, we do see immaculate follow through, just not from God.
And hold on…I’ll repeat that…did you hear smoldering temple?! The intersection of heaven and earth in perpetual ruins? What does this mean? Why didn’t God prevent at least this from happening? Then… He must have left us! US! But…Israel is God’s servant to restore the earth! So then, what does it mean for the world that He’s left us? When Israel’s temple burns that can only mean God’s not inside it, and if God’s exited the temple He very well might have cast off the whole creation.
Now we could imagine the Almighty muttering: Hmm, that earth project didn’t go well. Let’s see about a reboot in the Andromeda Galaxy…
Elton, here’s the point, and I’ll use Trumpian caps to underscore: THE SCENE CAN’T GET ANY GRIMMER THAN PSALM 74!
After his distraught survey of the evidence that God has tossed aside Israel, and likely with them the globe…the psalmist takes a deep breath. Struggles to find his bearings. Ok. Where is God? Where do we stand now? What exactly is going on here?
The method by which the psalmist orients himself may seem strange to us moderns. He turns to historical reflection as his north star. Listen to what he says: Yet God my King is from old/ working salvation in the midst of the earth (12).
In the midst of the earth. Given only that phrase, we couldn’t know to what he’s referring. But the next few lines suggest that by that mysterious phrase he’s describing the world’s creation. With midst of the earth he highlights that God’s creation work was deep: at the sources of time, at the foundation of the world’s structures, down down down. This reading is confirmed by the creation specifics he lists, all speaking of fundamentals – the dividing of the sea, springs being split open, the establishment of stars and time and seasons.
Moreover, he speaks of the Creation as a series of God’s conquests: working salvation…broke the heads…crushed the heads. (Hmm – God conquered in order to create? Didn’t know that!) The enemies that God subdued in creating – sea monsters… Leviathan – have a mythological ring to them, but then, who knows? Who’s to say what or who is found in the midst of the earth, down where the earth’s pillars emerge, at the sources of time and space. Only God knows the deep places. And there He conquers.
So, from ancient times God has been working in the midst of the earth to save the world from the enemies of creation. From un-creation and chaos.
Ok, starting to come back around to you, Elton: What solace is gained from considering that God my King is from old/ working salvation in the midst of the earth? Well, let’s consider again the scene before the psalmist. The psalmist looks upon a world upside down. Chaos is having its day (but not in the sun, of course! v.20). Civilization is retreating before the onslaught of cruel nature eager to retake ground (v.5). Creation is giving way to un-creation (v.19). The covenant – the mechanism by which God is saving the world – appears obsolete.
And before this reversal and defeat and desolation, the psalmist turns to the creation to recall two truths: 1) God has been kicking the butt of creation’s destroyers since the beginning. 2) And His work saving the creation has been anything but superficial. Rather, God’s work has been at the very heart of things, in the midst of the earth, destroying enemies we didn’t even know existed.
Conclusion: what’s currently on the surface and a few layers beneath might suggest that God has given up on His project…BUT THE APPEARANCE OF THINGS BELIE THE FACTS. The facts – established since the creation – are that God has ever been and will ever be committed to making things right, and that when he works to make things right he does so at the roots. Eventually His work at the roots will show up on the surface. Eventually.
For my jalopy driving friend Elton – Just a couple of applications, Brother: O God, why do you cast us off? I notice here something about trust: it calls after God even as it feels abandoned by Him. Do that too, Elton. Tell God everything you’re seeing, everything you’re feeling, even the gloomy things you’re feeling about Him. Just don’t go quiet toward Him.
And then, can you take a cue from this psalm and not only look at the disaster in front of you but also call to your mind other scenes, even ancient ones? After all, we are people who seek God. If we can’t spot him here or now, then we’ll look for Him in other times, before we were even around. Because God is eternal we can just as well look for Him in other times as in our own. Frankly, sometimes TRUTH is easier to spot when we’re not in the picture.
Elton, not telling you anything new, just reminding: Psalm 74 is something of an echo of the heart of our Christian story, which has its own questioning wail, “My God, My God, Why did you forsake me?” Our creed says that just then, in that moment of abandonment, God was going down down down into the roots of evil and saying a final, decisive “No.” (And in the resurrection a decisive “yes” to the Creation.) Can you believe that He’s doing something analogous in your disaster and subsequent bewilderment? That He’s working out a deep plan?
I hate to see you in pain. I pray that your faith be preserved. I pray for wisdom in dealing with broken trust. I pray that you’ll quickly perceive God’s grace in all this. I firmly believe that – in an extraordinary and deep way – God is working out his salvation in you and your family. There’s something creative occurring beneath your embarrassment. Yes, there’s so much good happening right now, so much life being formed…it’s just too deep to see. You’ll see it someday.
-Colin
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