Seeking (Psalm 143)

“Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” (Matthew 7:7)

By saying the Psalms, we discover that we share with people down the ages the same distress, despair and doubt as saints throughout history. Yet, out of the struggle we are also joined to their faith, which leads them out of the darkness of despair to the light of hope, out of the powerlessness of life to the power of God, our rock and our salvation.

As recorded at St. Luke’s

Spirituality for Dark Times: Seeking – Psalm 143

Blue Monday

Tomorrow is what has come to be known as blue Monday. A few years ago, someone sat down to calculate when the most depressing day of the year was. By taking into account the weather, the time since Christmas and broken New Year’s resolutions they decided it should be the third Monday in January.

The labelling is controversial. The calculations were fairly meaningless and there is no evidence that people are more depressed on any particular day of the year. There is even some evidence that the day was invented by travel companies as a marketing ploy!

Nonetheless, the idea seems to have caught on. Most people are happy to believe that this time of year is fairly miserable. Mid-January is a dark time.

Dark Times – vs. 3-4

Of course there are many reasons why life can feel miserable or dark. Our Psalm for today, Psalm 143 is not very explicit about why things are miserable, other than it is the fault of an ‘enemy.’ This probably referred to a literal human enemy. After all the Psalm is linked to David and he had periods in his life, when people were literally hunting him down in order to kill him. And these were not just the traditional enemy, David was often hunted by those he had previously been very close to.

But, the Psalm is not clear on who the enemy is, which enables us to use these words to speak about almost anything that is threatening to destroy our life. Sometimes other people, but it could refer to disease or illness, or debt, addictions, mental health – whatever is crushing our lives.

And the Psalms can offer us powerful ways to express what it is like to go through dark times. Just look at verses 3-4 as a powerful example. Perhaps as I read them again, imagine it describing as the enemy whatever it is that is causing you the most trouble at the moment.

“The enemy pursues me,

he crushes me to the ground;

he makes me dwell in darkness

like those long dead.

So my spirit grows faint within me;

my heart within me is dismayed.”

But although the Psalm is real about how difficult life can be, it does not give into despair.

How to respond to dark times?

I would suggest there are two ways to respond to dark times in life, especially when you find yourself in a situation where you are not in a position to help yourself.

Despair

One is to despair. To believe that nothing can be done, that there is no-one to help, that all is hopeless. This is to feel out of control and to give up on anything being done to sort things out.

Verses 3-4 of the Psalm come very close to expressing such despair. One Bible version even translates the start of verse 4 as:

“I am ready to give up…”

Perhaps this is how you are feeling at the moment. It may be that you have got to a state where you don’t even feel able to hope or move beyond despair.

In my twenties, my brother died. Although this did not threaten or ruin my life, for a time I was emotionally and spiritually paralysed by grief. This was grief, not despair, but the emotional and mental state has parallels. One thing I found that I couldn’t do was pray. But one thing I could do was read the Psalms. At that time I found that powerfully helpful.

If you are struggling with despair, unable even to lift yourself to pray, then can I suggest starting with the basic Christian spiritual exercise of reading the Psalms. Maybe even just take this Psalm and read it over and over. Just as the Psalmist moves out of despair to hope, you too may be enabled to join in their journey and take the first steps out of the darkness of despair.

Seeking Help

The second option is to seek help. Many times it is appropriate to seek help from other people or human institutions. If we are ill we should see a doctor, if we are struggling to find work, we should see a careers adviser or job centre worker, if we are dealing with addiction then AA or NA may be a great route to go down, if we are in debt, then there are groups like the Christian Against Poverty who can offer help.

But as well as seeking help from others and particularly where others can’t help, and especially in dark times, we can seek help from God. We call that prayer and many of the Psalms are seeking help from God in desperate situations.

This Psalm is no exception, from the position of almost total despair in verses 3 and 4, the rest of the Psalm turns to seek help from God in prayer.

Seeking Help

Prayer is, of course, a fundamental part of Christian spirituality. It is and should be more and more a fundamental part of our lives as Christians.

Last week I said that Christian spirituality is a way of re-orienting our  souls from the kind of self-absorption that accompanies dark times and despair to focus us on God. Prayer is a key part of that, and prayer is a cry from our helpless to seek help from the one who is more than able.

At St. Luke’s and St. George’s people pray as individuals we also come together to pray, here on a Sunday morning, in our small groups that meet during the week and at our daily prayer meetings. Quite often I have been concerned about a difficult meeting and asked the people at daily prayer to pray for me and found that the later meeting has gone really well.

Perhaps the most dramatic answer to prayer I have had recently was at a Christian meeting I went to last year. I was sitting next to an elderly gentleman from another church, who during the meeting slumped on his chair and was clearly having a stroke or something. We managed to get him lying on the floor and we made sure someone had called for an ambulance. But as he laid there I prayed rather desperately seeking God’s help, because it felt like he was dying in front of our eyes. Just then he came to, and a lady that was tending to him, said that God answered my prayer. A few weeks later I met him at another Christian meeting and he said he had sensed some kind of love coming from me at that moment.

I can’t say exactly what happened in that moment. But I know that as I felt helpless thinking someone was dying in front of me I sought help from God and the man ended up OK.

When God answers my prayers in such amazing ways, the danger is that I think that I personally have a special hotline to God or that prayer is like a kind of magical power that is useful to solve life’s problems. These wrong attitudes raise two key questions that this Psalm helps us answer about prayer:

• How dare I seek God’s help?
• In what way is prayer more than a solution to my problems?

How dare I seek God’s help?

My unworthiness – vs. 2

The first question is faced headlong in verse 2, where it explicitly states:

“Do not bring your servant into judgment,

for no-one living is righteous before you.”

This week in the news, it was reported that if it wasn’t for the fact that Donald Trump was about to become US President, he would have stood trial for subverting the 2020 election result and would likely have been convicted. As President he avoids trial and so avoids judgement.

The Psalmist makes a similar point about all of us coming to trial before God. If we were to be judged by God and his perfect standards we would all fall short. None of us are good enough to come before God, we are all completely dependent on his mercy.

Based on our merits, we shouldn’t expect anything from God, except his judgement. How dare we then seek his help?

God’s Faithfulness – vs. 1,11-12

The answer is that we can dare to seek God’s help, not because of our goodness or achievements, but only because of God’s faithful love and righteousness.

This is what the Psalm appeals to in verses 1 and in verses 11 to 12 as it seeks God’s help. It doesn’t say, “Look how great I am God, you gotta help me.” Rather, it says, “Look how faithful and righteous you are, Oh God, for the sake of your good name, please help me!”

In these verses, the Psalmist calls himself, God’s servant. He has no claim or power over God, but as someone who belongs to God, he throws himself on God’s merciful support.

This attitude of the Psalmist is underlined, by Jesus’ dying for our sins. It shows us that our sins fundamentally separate us from God and his help, they put us under God’s judgement. But rather than bring us into judgement, God sent his Son to take my judgement on himself. The cross demonstrates that I have no right to seek help from God, but that God has made the ultimate sacrifice of faithful love and righteousness in order to be able to offer me help.

We cannot come to God in arrogance, thinking we are better than others. We must come to God as humble servants dependent on his wonderful love and grace. This humble attitude is at the heart of Christian spirituality. It is real about our own sinfulness, but confident of God’s great love.

In what way is prayer more than a solution to my problems?

The second question is: “In what way is prayer more than a solution to my problems?”

The Psalm helps us with this. It could simply jump from the complaint and despair of verses 3 to 4, to the cry for help in verses 11-12. But, the Psalmist is not just seeking help, he is seeking more. Christian spirituality is not just bringing a list of our problems to seek God’s help, it is about re-orienting our souls to the living God.

First Seek the LORD  – vs. 5-6

We see this profoundly in verses 5-6. Rather than seeking God’s help, the first thing they seek is God himself. Verse 6 in particular says,

“I spread out my hands to you;

my soul thirsts for you like a parched land”

God is not just the solution to our problems, our fundamental need is to know him. As Saint Augustine famously said,

“You have made us for yourself, O Lord,

and our hearts are restless until they finds their rest in you.”

Christian Spirituality is deeply relational… that is why Jesus’s prayer, begins, ‘Our Father…’. Faith is not just a way to solve life’s problems, the very meaning of life is to have a relationship with God. Prayer loses its meaning when we forget that.

Then Seek His Guidance – vs. 7-10

Secondly, prayer is not primarily about asking God to change my situation for the better, but opening myself up to be changed by God for the better.

In verses 7 to 10, the Psalmist asks God not just for help with his threatening situation, but with guidance for life:

“Show me the way I should go,” (verse 8b)

“Teach me to do your will,” (verse 10a)

“may your good Spirit lead me…” (verse 10b)

We cannot presume on God to change our situation unless, we are willing to be personally transformed by the leading and guidance of His Spirit.

More on this when we think about meditation next week.

Then Seek his Help  – vs. 11-12

But, thirdly, God does care about our needs and what causes us despair. We are to bring our needs to God and seek his help. We don’t need to despair. There is a practical aspect to Christian spirituality, it is not separated from the needs and problems of life, but does address them.

How then are we to pray?

We need to pray humbly. We come as servants, having no claims of power over God, but confident of his faithful love and righteousness.

We come seeking his help for our practical needs, but not before seeking a deeper relationship with him and opening ourselves up to his leading and transformation. As we do these things, sometimes we see that our problems are not as significant compared with the surpassing joy of knowing Christ, or even that we are the problem and the solution is not the thwarting of my enemy, but my own transformation.

So are you despairing or seeking help? More importantly are you seeking God’s lead in life and more importantly still are you seeking God himself?