Psalms to the Rescue
Country Music Hall of Fame
Which instrument is harder to tune? The one never played or the one played most often?
Reading the Psalms can calibrate and recalibrate, tune our hearts to hear from God and help us see life from God’s point of view.
Calibrate: set to standards; attune; adjust; regulate.
Recalibrate: to reset over and over again, as needed.
Recalibration is necessary because life’s music gets discordant and the instrument of thinking needs tuning.
Uncomfortable Circumstances
While reading a book about praise that said some Christians never praise God, I found myself in circumstances where it was hard to focus on praise. In a tiny hotel room in the south of France, after the long journey to get there, drab surroundings further flattened my spirits.
A tiny room in Lescar felt like a prison cell–– cramped, spare and utilitarian. I would be abandoned during the day while my husband went off to work. Somewhere.
I had not expected hotel accommodations for a week that looked like a dorm room at best or a summer camp cabin at worst. How many people had slept on that bed, sunken in the middle, maybe a foot off the floor?
It was not love at first sight. But the very next day, the room seemed expansive, as if I could see the whole world from where I sat.
The difference?
Alone, I started reading Psalms. A renewed commitment. A revived heart. I decided to praise the Lord.
Based on his life experiences, one reason the psalms David wrote continue to impact readers nearly 3,000 years later is that David met God alone.
I can picture young David on a hillside, looking at the stars overhead (Psalm 8), hearing sheep make sheep sounds (Psalm 23), swatting bugs (Psalm 39), maybe scratching insect bites (Psalm 25), or prying stones out of his sandals (Psalm 37).
In a place of real isolation, David gained surreal spiritual insight.
As David and the other writers of Psalms contemplated the meaning of life, God gave them wisdom––the ability to see life from God’s point of view.
David’s words reveal his assurance that God saw him, knew him, and loved him.
David testifies how knowing God made a difference throughout his life.
It’s possible to chart through the psalms times of renewed commitment in David’s life, times when circumstances pressed, and times when David got up after he fell down.
Even writing about the need for forgiveness and confession of sin, David displayed a dignity in his humanity that bore witness to his walk with God.
Whether a lament or a praise––the language of sorrow or surrender and the language of joy or jubilation––the Psalms reveal that God welcomes both.
God hears it all anyway. The whining. The complaints (Psalm 106). He knows my thoughts, the psalmist reminds me, so who can I fool except myself (Psalm 139)? Why do I act surprised when life smacks me once again, alerting me that I have gotten off course? How will I find my way back? Who cares if I get lost?
God says He cares
The psalms give voice to the tortured, suffering, agonized soul, the hidden part asking questions and wrestling doubts, but psalms never leave readers with spiritual myopia. Instead, vision gets correction that observes how God works in the lives of others, even our enemies (e.g. Psalm 56:9). The truth, the psalmist insists, all men are like sheep, in terms of need and the inability to save ourselves (Psalm 38).
“Know that the LORD, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture” (Psalm 100:3, NKJV).
The psalmist, no matter how he frames the question or sets up the dialogue, recalibrates his thinking and concludes with the same answer: God knows what He is doing.
The psalms help us begin to appreciate that God gives us what we need even when sometimes it seems as if He cares about other people more than He cares about me. We can choose to complain as if slighted (Psalm 73) or remind ourselves not to feel proud (e.g. Psalms 131, 138). The psalmist most often winds up with reasons to praise God (Psalm 73).
The psalms offer assurance that God cares about me personally. Fundamentally, every person wants to feel seen and known and understood.
But God feels very far off when I refuse to acknowledge Him through praise or even when I need to lament.
A Change of Heart
Recommitted. Yielded. The psalmist marvels. He sings. He sighs. He finds some way to express openly truth that burned through from inside his heart to outside his shirt. Gratitude finds a way to praise the Lord, Yahweh (Psalm 103), to deflect glory to God, life centered where it belongs. Considering how God got through to David and other psalmists who recorded dilemmas, diatribes and dusty truths unites us in our shared humanity.
Never able to completely escape my spiraling emotions or talk myself out of moods, or console myself when wronged or hurt, I have experienced both comfort and peace when I get to a place where I decide to praise the Lord. Anyway. Anywhere. At all times.
I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast in the Lord: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad. O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together. Psalm 34:1–3, KJV
Happy ending to that week I spent in Lescar. While my husband worked, I roamed the town on foot, seeing everything with new eyes.
My first impression of the hotel may have been 2 Star, but turns out it had a 5 Star restaurant and gourmet chef, making it known for the most delicious food miles around. My husband and I could not have gotten restaurant reservations for even one night if we had not been guests in the hotel.
I can read the Psalms and travel not only across the ocean but traverse the centuries, not just continents. I need to praise the Lord, to join that chorus of praise, relearned and recognizable to every person of faith in Jesus Christ. God can still get through to me. And that makes me know I’m alive. And when I tell someone else, admitting my need for recalibration praises God (cf. 62–63).
“From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the LORD is to be praised.” Psalm 113:3, NIV
The psalmist describes praise as a matter of life and breath.
