“Fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing.” (Psalm 34:9)

We often think of spirituality as bringing us a sense of peace and comfort from connecting with God’s love and that is true. But it should also bring us into a healthy fear of God. Fear of God is freeing not limiting, it brings peace, because we are confident that justice will win out and it develops a wisdom in us, that will enable us to prosper in life.

Psalm 34 – Spirituality for Dark Times: Fearing

Speedy Steve

Steve Coogan, the well-known comic actor has been in a bit of trouble. He was caught speeding at 97mph on the M6. But, why? What fears motivated him?

Maybe, he enjoyed the thrill of the fear of breaking the law or of risking his life by driving so fast. Or did the fear of being late to some appointment cause him to drive at high speed?

He claims that since being caught he has been driving below the speed limit. It seems fear of a driving ban, fear of the power of the law over him has made him drive more safely. And this is part of the point of the law, isn’t it? That a healthy fear of the consequences of breaking the law help us to be good.

Fear of the right things can lead us to live a good life.

Spirituality for Dark TImes

But, sometimes, fear is awful. Sometimes we can face fearful situations that we need to be rescued from.

We are going through a series called, ‘Spirituality for Dark Times’, and dark times can certainly be fearful times. Spirituality is not an activity, that is separate from the rest of our lives, a hobby we do on Sundays, an alternative activity to playing golf, cycling or reading the Sunday paper.

It is in connecting with God, that we find both a lifeline from the struggles of life and the power to live a good life. And today, I want to show that a Christian spirituality, can both help us in times of great fear and lead us to have a healthy fear that brings about a good life.

To help us do that, let’s look at Psalm 34.

Desperate Dave

Psalm 34 was written as a response to God’s rescue from a desperately fearful situation. We can see that in the title of the Psalm:

“Of David. When he pretended to be insane before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he left.” (Psalm 34 – Title)

The situation referred to is probably the story related at the end of 1 Samuel 21. There the king in question is called, Achish, King of Gath, a king of the Philistines, the enemies of Israel, whom David had spent most of his life, fighting. Why does the Psalm refer to him as, ‘Abimelech’? We’re not quite sure, but it may have been a title for the Philistine kings, as it literally means, ‘My Father’ is king. But that is not important.

What is important is to understand David’s situation. He had become a very successful army commander under, Saul, king of Israel and even married, Saul’s daughter. But he was a victim of his own success. When people started singing in the streets:

“`Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands’?”

Saul became jealous and worried, that David was going to take over his kingship. So, Saul began to plot to have David killed and David had to flee for his life? But where would he go? Perhaps thinking that the old adage, “My enemies, enemy is my friend”, David fled to Achish, King of Gath, the enemy of Saul, hoping he would offer protection.

But, then the people in Achish’s court, started quoting the ditti:

“Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.”

And David realised, that the Philistines might see him as a threat best eliminated. Wherever he looked it seemed that there were people out to kill him. And so not surprisingly it says in 1 Samuel, that he was very afraid!

He had become Desperate Dave, there was nowhere safe for him. Imagine, you were in his situation, imagine the terror you would feel. How frightened you would be.

The story in 1 Samuel, says that David discovered a clever way out of the predicament. He pretended to be mad. As a result, the king didn’t want him around and didn’t see him as a threat. So David was able to escape and hide out in the Judean countryside until eventually Saul died in battle with the Philistines and David was made king.

But, what has all this to do with Spirituality? 1 Samuel doesn’t mention God at all in this story. That’s where Psalm 34 comes in. It is David’s poetic response to what happened and it is all about spirituality.

Spirituality seeks Salvation from fear- vs. 1-8

In the Psalm David doesn’t boast about his clever scheme, but God’s rescue. The Psalm begins with a call to praise God in verses 1 to 3, then David explains how he was saved from his terrifying situation.

Verse 4 tells us:

“I sought the LORD, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.”

and verse 6 says:

“This poor man called, and the LORD heard him, he saved him out of all his travels.”

What did David do, when faced with a situation of great fear. He sought the LORD and called out to him. Christian spirituality, is a lifeline from the terrifying situations we may come to face in life.

Indeed, when we find ourselves afraid or anxious, our instinct needs to be to bring our problems to God, he can and will rescue us from our greatest fears. As Paul says,

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” (Philippians 4:6)

David in the Psalm is saying, look God rescued me from this terrible situation and he can and will rescue you to. As verse 8, says:

“Taste and see that the LORD is good, blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.” (Psalm 34:8)

Whatever difficulty you are facing in life at the moment. Bring it to God. Take refuge in him. In fearful situations, God is our lifeline. Call out to him.

Spirituality develops a holy fear – vs. 9-20

The Hinge of the Psalm verses – 7-9

Spirituality is for every situation in life. It can rescue us from terrifying fear, but it also can help us develop a good holy fear.

David says,

“Fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing.” (Psalm 34:9)

What kind of fear are we talking about here? It is not the kind of fear that leaves us terrified and paralysed. After all, we know God loves us.

Next week we will come to Psalm 23 and see that God is a God of comfort and care, our good shepherd.

But the fear of the LORD is something commanded regularly in both the Old and New Testaments. What does it mean? How does it link to Spirituality.

Fear that surrenders to God – vs. 9-10

Firstly, the Psalm tells us that to fear God, is to surrender to him, to become deeply dependent on him, to accept that without him, there is no hope, no salvation. To fear God, is to fear not having his help, to fear a life without him.

Verse 10 expresses this. It compares young lions with those who seek the LORD. Young lions, would have been seen as the strongest and most powerful of the beasts in David’s time. A lion can look after itself. Surely, it doesn’t need help, it is self-sufficient, it can rely on its own strength.

Verse 10, says, no. Young lions can grow weak and hungry. No-one is self-sufficient. No-one can depend on their own strength. The only way we can truly survive in life, is to give up on depending on our own strength and surrender ourselves to God, in utter dependence on him, so that the most terrifying thing in life is to lose his help.

As Peter says to Jesus in John 6, when others were deserting Jesus:

“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68)

Such a fear will drive us to want to stay connected with God, to seek him in prayer and to learn from him, through study of his word and to be part of his people by being part of a church. It is surrendering our whole lives to God in complete dependence that drives our spirituality.

Fear that seeks the good life – vs. 11-14

Secondly, to fear God is to fear the consequences of displeasing him. It is to understand that he is the ultimate judge of our lives; that he is the one we will have to give an account to, in life beyond death.

Jesus warns us:

“I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.” (Luke 12:4-5)

Indeed, when we make decisions in life, we often have to weigh up who to fear more. Steve Coogan had to decide whether he was more afraid of being late, so that he would speed in his car, or of the law, so that he would obey the law and drive safely.

When our spirituality connects us with God in such a way that we truly appreciate how he is the ultimate judge over good and evil, then even though we can be confident, that he forgives those who turn to him, we will take seriously the need to live to please God.

And this is a good thing. As it says in Proverbs:

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,

and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”(Prov. 9:10)

So, David in verses 11 to 14, wants to encourage a fear of the LORD that leads to a good life, a life of truth telling, a life that seeks peace.

Our spirituality connects us with God and so leads us into a holy fear, which in turn is the route to leading a good life.

Fear that sustains in trouble  – vs. 15-22

But finally, this is a fear that sustains us in trouble. To fear God, is also to have a confidence in the face of whatever else might scare us. After all, if we come to understand that God is the most fearful thing we will ever know, and yet he loves us and wants the best for us, then what else do we ultimately need to be afraid of?

This I think is the sense of the last section of the Psalm. Why be afraid of troubles, if the LORD is bigger than those troubles and can ultimately deliver us from them?

David had come to understand this afresh when God rescued him from Achish, king of Gath. God does not keep us from fearful situations, but he will ultimately bring us safely through them.

 David expresses this in a profound way in verse 20:

“he protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken.” (Psalm 34:20) 

John, in his gospel, says that this verse was fulfilled in Jesus on the cross. Unlike the two people who were crucified with him, and contrary to normal practice at crucifixions, Jesus’ bones were not broken. Jesus on the cross was a fulfilment of this Psalm, His God was protecting Him, and was rescuing him, as indeed he did in the resurrection from death.

Ultimately, the death and resurrection of Jesus, is what can set us free from all other fears. As it says in Hebrews:

“Since the children have flesh and blood, Jesus too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death–that is, the devil–  and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” (Heb. 2:14-15)

When we fear the God, who demonstrated his power over death and life, then like Jesus, who was not afraid to go through the horrors of death on the cross, we can be free from all fear, because we trust that God is the one who has the ultimate power and the ultimate say, and as the Psalm says:

“The LORD redeems his servants;

no-one will be condemned who takes refuge in him.”

“The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.” (Psalm 19:7)

How do we remain rooted and flourishing through the dark times? Meditate on God’s word.

As recorded at St. Luke’s

Resilience to face Dark Times?

We are at present going through a series called, Spirituality for Dark Times. Thinking about how the way we connect with God can help us cope with the difficulties that we may face in life.

Not that we only turn to God when we are going through tough times. Actually, the point of the Psalm we are looking at today, is that it is through regular connection with God throughout our lives, that we become people who can cope with difficulties in life when they occur. In other words that by connecting with God, through our spiritual practices we build up resilience.

The truth is, though, that people today are becoming less and less resilient. The increase in depression and anxiety among young people is not because they are suffering more than past generations. Very few are shipwrecked on a freezing island. The problem is that they have less ability to cope with the pressures and problems when they come. They have less resilience.

Why is this? Many increasingly and persuasively argue that this increase is linked to the advent of mobile phones and social media. Part of the problem is that these feed us a disjointed stream of information and attitudes that reflect the latest fads and fancies of the age and very rarely anything of real substance or meaning, let alone anything of the God who created us and loves us so much he sent his Son to die for us.

The result is that our more impressionable young people are left rootless in their thinking and many of the rest of us do not fare much better. You will never become resilient by spending your time on social media – yet, that is where a lot of us spend our time.

Contrasting Ways and Destinations

Social media did not exist, when Psalm 1 was written. Yet, there was still a choice of who you listened to and who you allowed yourself to be influenced by. The Psalm presents a very clear choice between two ways: being influenced by the wicked, sinners and mockers or delighting and meditating on God’s words. It then clearly contrasts the two distinct destinations.

Those who listen to the wicked it says, ends up like chaff. Chaff was the bits of dried-up vegetation that got mixed up with the grain when it was harvested. You wanted the grain to make flour, but you didn’t want the chaff – it was just rubbish. It was also lightweight, so what they did was to throw the harvested grain into the air, so that the chaff blew away and the wheat fell back down into the ground.

To be like chaff, is to be lightweight, to have no stability, value or purpose. It is to be easily blown around by whatever difficulties or struggles come. Ultimately, the Psalm says such people will not be able to stand before the judgement of God. This is the complete opposite of resilience.

In stark contrast, however, those who delight and meditate on God’s word are compared to a tree planted by streams of water. Such a tree is immovable, solid, rooted. No matter how strong the winds of difficulties blow, it will stand strong. No matter how much the drought of dark times come, its leaves will not whither. This is a powerful picture of the truly resilient of those who still flourish and prosper, even when times are tough. Isn’t this the kind of people we want our youngsters to become. Isn’t this what we want to be like? The Psalm begins by describing such people as “blessed”. That is to have a happiness that flows from a sense of well-being and rightness with our souls.

What’s the secret? How do we become such blessed and resilient people? Not by spending time with mockers or scrolling though social media, but with a spirituality that listens intently to God through his word. That is what the Psalm commends. And I want to focus in on that way to resilience as laid out in verse 2:

“but their delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law they meditate day and night.” (Psalm 1:2)

The Way to Resilience: Delight and Meditation

The ‘Law of the LORD’ refers to the scriptures. Not just the commands and guidance but the story of God’s work amongst us. For the Psalmist he probably meant just the first five books of the Bible, but we can easily take it now to refer to the whole of the Bible.

But what does he mean by ‘delight’ and ‘meditate’.

Delight in God’s Word

The word, ‘delight’ talks about the passion of the heart. You could almost translate it as ‘fall in love with’. Indeed, the word is used for someone falling love with Dinah, Jacob’s daughter.

You fall in love with someone, because they are beautiful and amazing and you love spending time with them.

Psalm 19 is a classic Psalm about God’s word and it certainly delights in it as something beautiful and deeply valuable, it almost reads like a love poem:

“The law of the LORD is perfect,

reviving the soul.

The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy,

making wise the simple.

The precepts of the LORD are right,

giving joy to the heart.

The commands of the LORD are radiant,

giving light to the eyes.

The fear of the LORD is pure,

enduring for ever.

The ordinances of the LORD are sure and altogether righteous. They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb. By them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.

(Psalm 19:7-11)

Do you see the amazing value of God’s word? So much so that you want it for yourself and others? Just as you might want to spend time with someone you are in love with, do you want to spend time with God’s word?

Throughout history, people have shown great desire and sacrifice to hear God’s word. In the first description of the early church, Luke says,

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching ….” (Acts 2:42) in other words to God’s word.

Throughout the history of the church, both pre and post reformation the reading of scripture was foundational to religious life, with the Medieval monasteries, copying and preserving the scripture in Europe through more illiterate times.

The leaders of the reformation were passionate about getting the scriptures to people so they could read it in their own language. William Tyndale, who was the man most responsible for translating the Bible into English, was burned at the stake for his efforts.

More recently, Brother Andrew, a Dutch Christian spent years smuggling Bibles into the communist block despite the dangers of arrest and imprisonment by the authorities.

All of this shows a passion, a delight about God’s word, because they know how valuable it is. Only regular engagement with God’s word brings true blessing, resilience and flourishing in life. The more we can grasp this passion and desire, the more we will be motivated to spend time in God’s word.

Meditate on God’s Word

So, how are we to engage with God’s word? Psalm 1 says we are to ‘meditate’ on it. Three aspects of the word, ‘meditate’ as used in the Bible are worth emphasising:

Firstly, the word ‘meditate’ here does not really mean sitting in silence reflecting on God’s word. Often the word is translated as to speak.

So, in Proverbs 8, the same word is translated as ‘speak’:

“My mouth speaks what is true, for my lips detest wickedness.” (Proverbs 8:7)

Actually, in ancient times, no-one read silently. They would always read out loud. You may even like to try reading scripture out loud yourself. You might find you engage with it more effectively than reading it quietly. Just as in other Psalms, the psalmist talks to his soul, we can read scripture to ourselves as a way of talking to ourselves.

But, secondly, to meditate is to take things more fully into our hearts, than just to speak them. In another Proverb it says:

“The heart of the righteous weighs (or ponders) its answers, but the mouth of the wicked gushes evil.” (Proverbs 15:28)

This is not just reading Scripture but thinking about its meaning more deeply as we have to give answers to life’s questions.

Thirdly, to meditate is to listen in order to learn how to live.

When Joshua took over the leadership of Israel from Moses, God said to him:

“Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.” (Joshua 1:8)

As James says in the New Testament:

“”Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” (James 1:22)

Meditation then is an active spoken engagement with the word, in order to grapple with the issues of life and learn how to live for God in our world.

In fact, if you want to see examples of how to meditate on Scripture, the Psalms, themselves, are a great example.

Let’s just recall the three Psalms we have already looked at. As the writer faces struggles in life, each time he goes back to God’s word.

Take Psalm 103:

“He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel: The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.”

(Psalm 103:7-8)

The Psalmist explicitly refers to Moses and God revealing his character to Moses, as he struggles with the darkness of his life, he is encouraged by a reminder of what God is really like.

Or Psalm 143, again as he cries out to God for mercy, the writer thinks back on what he has learnt about God’s past actions from Scripture:

“I remember the days of long ago; I meditate on all your works and consider what your hands have done.”

(Psalm 143:5)

Or Psalm 130, where the Psalmist is learning to wait on God, he gains confidence to do so, through the truth of God’s goodness learnt from his word:

“But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared. I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.” (Psalm 130:4-5)

So, how might you meditate on God’s word?

Firstly, read it. Lots of it. The more of Scripture you read, the more of it you will understand and the more you will be able to bring to mind when you come to God in prayer or ponder how to live for God in this life. You don’t have to read lots at once. You can read most Bible chapters in a few minutes. If you do one a day over four years, you will have read the whole Bible. And remember the Bible is a library of books, not just one book. So, as an initial starting point aim to read just one book of the Bible over a period of time. I know last year Claire encouraged many of you to read Luke through Advent, just one chapter a day. A great idea, although the chapters in Luke are longer than most books! When you finish one book, choose a different one.  Or if you want to be more ambitious choose to follow one of the many Bible in a year reading schemes you can find online.

Secondly, ponder it. You may find it helpful to read what others have said about a passage and there are lots of Bible reading notes online or in booklet form that can help you think more fully about a passage. This can be particularly helpful if you are starting out on Bible reading. But why not write down what God is teaching you through a particular Bible passage in a journal of some kind. That kind of deeper engagement can make a real difference.

Thirdly, pray that God will help you to learn from scripture and change your life to better follow God’s ways. We are to meditate on scripture not just study it. We are to let it transform our lives, not just see it as an interesting academic exercise. Are there things the passage shows you that you need to confess to God? Are there things that it shows you where you need to change your thinking or attitude about God, the world or others? Are there things that encourage you when life is tough?

The Choice

The method of meditation is not ultimately what matters. What matters is real transformational engagement.

That is the choice that Psalm 1 presents to us. Do we want to be like chaff, lightweight rubbish that blows away in the wind? Or do we want to be like a tree planted by streams of water, stable, secure, resilient and flourishing?

“I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.” (Psalm 130:5)

How do we keep going through dark times? Wait on God.

As recorded at St. Luke’s

Psalms 130 and 131

St Luke’s, Ramsgate 26 January 2025

In the Book of Psalms there are fifteen so-called ‘songs of ascent’, and it is believed that these would have been sung by pilgrims walking to Jerusalem for one or other of the feasts of the Tabernacles, Passover, Pentecost. In our Bibles they are numbered 120 through to 134, and this morning we have heard Psalms 130 and 131 being read. As psalms go, all of them are relatively short, so the words would have been fairly easy for people walking along to remember. No-one knows what tunes they were set to, but if we were to imagine marching tunes, or tunes that have a definite beat, and a brisk walking pace, we probably wouldn’t be far off. Maybe something along the lines of the tune of the Proclaimers’ ‘I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more, just to be the man who walked a thousand miles to fall down at your door’.

Twenty-five years ago, there was another song by the Proclaimers that was less widely known, but was even more like a song of ascent. The beginning of it went like this: ‘I’m on my way from misery to happiness today, aha, aha, aha, aha’. As well as being a bit of an ear-worm – once you’ve heard it, it goes round and around and gets into your brain – this lyric is so characteristic of a song of ascent that we can actually use these words as a framework to explore the four things that Psalm 130 offers by way of a spirituality for dark times (which overlap with a couple of things that are offered by Psalm 131).

Let’s start with the first three verses of Psalm 130, and with that phrase ‘from misery’. Right at the outset, this psalm strikes a note of heartfelt anguish that will resonate with anyone who has ever battled anxiety or depression. ‘Out of the depths, I cry to you, O Lord.’ It is not that the psalmist feels sad, or unhappy. Instead, it is as if they are falling helplessly down a bottomless pit, unable to feel anything at all, unable to rescue themselves. ‘O Lord, hear my voice’, the Psalmist cries in verse 2, not certain as to whether anyone sees or hears or cares about their plight: ‘let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy’. In short, these words all emerge from a deep and abiding misery.

Many other psalms strike a similar note, which is why we are in the middle of a series of sermons on Psalms that offer a spirituality for dark times. Some years ago, there was even a book of sermons by Martin Lloyd-Jones on Psalm 73 titled Spiritual Depression, which I am sure must still be in print and easily available to buy, and is well worth a read. The Psalms do not offer religious platitudes in the face of the range of human experience. They are far too realistic, and authentic, for that.

‘Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.’ Psalm 130 starts with misery, and it is a misery of a very particular kind, a misery that we hardly dare to admit to ourselves, let along to those around us, for fear we discover that there is no remedy to be found. It is the misery of wrongdoing, it is the misery of guilt, it is the misery of sin. “If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?”

I should add that our sin is not the only possible source of misery. In life, we are assaulted by the world and the devil, through no fault of our own, as well as by our own flesh. But the psalmist speaks of the misery of sin specifically, and today that is what we are considering.

We live in a therapeutic age, in which guilt is believed to be always unhealthy and psychologically damaging, and indeed there is such a thing as false guilt, whereby we feel guilty for things that are not our fault. However, there are also such things as sin and wrongdoing, of which we are all guilty in some way and to some degree regardless of our feelings in the matter. In another age, this prompted the authors of the Book of Common Prayer to write that “we have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done, and there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us miserable offenders”.

Modern prayer books have quietly dropped talk of us being miserable offenders, with no health in us. Having lost the misery, we are in danger of losing the realism and the authenticity of calling a spade a spade. We are in danger of thinking that we’re not so bad really, that the wrong we have done doesn’t amount to much when everything is said and done, and that it is far outweighed by all our good deeds – that in our case anyway, “the ‘nice’ column is longer than the ‘naughty’ column”, and that as a result we are basically ‘good people’.¹ In short, we are in danger of deluding ourselves about our position before God, by thinking that we are “justified in his sight by the works of the law” (Romans 3:20).

Misery, and utter dependence on God for mercy, is the Psalmist’s clear-sighted starting point, and misery is a better starting point than self-deception for all those who know themselves to have offended against God’s holy law. “Through the law we become conscious of sin”, as Paul teaches in his letter to the Romans.

Misery may be the starting point, but it is not the end point in this song of ascent, which moves on from misery to happiness – on from a particularly motivated misery to a particularly motivated happiness. “Happy are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered”, we read in Psalm 32. And here in Psalm 130, we read in verse 4, “but with you, Lord, there is forgiveness, therefore you are to be feared”. The Lord does not, in fact, keep a record of sins. Instead, he keeps a record of names in his Book of Life, and life came to the world through Jesus Christ. The grace of God “is grounded not only in a heart of love but in its disclosure through the death [and resurrection] of Jesus as the basis of deliverance”.² It turns out there is a remedy. “With you, Lord, there is forgiveness, therefore – our text says – you are to be feared.”

“The forgiveness of sins does not leave us with a [shallow and] cheerful, domestic idea of God. Rather, it calls forth from us a new respect for the humanly incomprehensible majesty and greatness of the God who can redeem humanity from so grave a predicament. … If we can only begin to understand what is meant here by the fear of the Lord”, according to the American preacher Fleming Rutledge, “we will understand the one thing we really need to know in life and death. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, as the Psalms and Proverbs repeatedly say … The fear of the Lord arises out of the discovery that he is a God of infinite mercy and compassion …The fear of the Lord is a very different thing”, she says, from the fear of any other person. And true happiness is a different thing from mere jollity or cheerfulness.

Properly understood, the fear of the Lord is happiness, because it liberates us from living in fear of any other person. “I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the Promised Land”, Martin Luther King to his congregation in the midst of the civil rights struggle, actually on the night before he died. “So I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything; I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” Or, as the apostle Paul puts it, “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). Happy are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. “With the Lord [there is] unfailing love, and with him is full redemption” (Psalm 130:7).

At the time the Psalmist wrote, of course, the fullness of this redemption lay in the future. The Lord himself “will redeem Israel from all their sins”, it is written, not that he had done so already. The law came through Moses, the New Testament tells us, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Not only so, but we whose hope is in Christ are still on our way from misery to happiness. There remains a future, unachieved aspect to the bliss we are promised. We are not yet entirely free from the misery of sin; we have not completely entered into un-attenuated joy. And this will always be the case, for so long as we remain in this life. We, together with all creation, long to be liberated one day from our bondage to decay, and eagerly await the glorious freedom of the children of God (Romans 8:21). We are still on our way from misery to happiness.

In this time of waiting, what we need is patience, accompanied by eager anticipation. “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits”, says Psalm 130, verses 5 and 6. “My soul waits for the Lord more than [night]watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning”. There is patient confidence in this waiting, that the Lord will surely come, just as morning follows night. That same confidence is to be found in Psalm 131, verse 2: “I have stilled and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother”. Yet there is also urgent expectation: “My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning”.

This waiting is not resigned or complacent, as if we weren’t sure, or didn’t care, whether the Lord would ever show up. Yet neither is it anxious, as if we thought all would be lost if he didn’t show up within our preferred timescale. This kind of waiting is an essential building block of a spirituality for dark times, and it is founded not on our exceptionally well developed skills in waiting, but on the certain knowledge, and the childlike trust, we can have in relation to a God who is not slow in keeping his promise. It is not always easy. In dark times, sometimes all we are able do is to hang on with our fingernails, wait upon God’s timing – whatever we may think of it – and to do so both patiently, and urgently. To call on him ‘out of the depths’, as the Psalmist does, is at one and the same time a cry of despair, and an expression of confidence. “The way out of the depths begins in the possibility of prayer and the awareness that only the One who hears that prayer can draw us out.”³

So our happiness at knowing that our sins are forgiven is a mode of trusting in God to take care of the past. Our eager waiting to be adopted as God’s children, and the redemption of our bodies (cf. Romans 8:23), is a mode of trusting in God to take care of the future. But in the light of this, in the space between the ‘now’ and the ‘not yet’, what remains for us to do today? The answer that Psalm 130 gives, is the same as that given by Psalm 131. Both psalms contain only one imperative phrase – in other words, there is only one thing the psalms actually tell us to do – and it is the same in both psalms. Psalm 130 verse 7 reads: ‘O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love’. Psalm 131 verse 3 reads: ‘O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, both now and forevermore’. The catchy refrain to these songs of ascent, the ear-worm lyric to both of them is ‘O Israel, put your hope in the Lord’. That is what we are invited to do today while we wait for the future to unfold – not just to hang around passively, looking to see what will happen, but to actively put our hope in him, to deliberately place all our eggs into one basket. This is, in fact, the only spirituality offered in the Bible for dark times, and the only spirituality that will do us any good in the final analysis – to put our hope in the Lord, today, every day, and forevermore.

Doing this involves giving up hope in our own mortal powers as independent agents, capable of forgiving ourselves, picking ourselves up and dusting ourselves down, trying harder to do better, succeeding where previously we’ve failed, pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, pretending that we are self-made people. That would be a form of idolatry.

Doing this also involves relinquishing hope in the powers of other mortal agents, depending entirely and ultimately on friends, family members, or loved ones to pull us through when times get tough. That too would be a form of idolatry. Whoever or whatever we actually rely on to bring us out of the depths of despair, that is our God right there.

Yet there is only one God who has the power to rescue us from our miserable, mortal human condition, and bring us to true and lasting happiness. God is whoever brought the Israelites out of slavery, and out of the land of Egypt. God is whoever raised Jesus Christ from the dead, as the first-fruits of all who have died. And in Christ, and in the power of the Holy Spirit, God helps those who are unable to help themselves.

So today if we hear his voice, let’s not harden our hearts, as our forebears did. As long as it is called today, let us fix all our hope on him; and by the grace of God we will do the same tomorrow. We continue to be a work in progress. We have not yet arrived at perfection. We are still on our way from misery to happiness today. Let’s not mind about any of that. Let us never pretend that it isn’t so. Songs of ascent, which start in the depths of our need, are perfectly appropriate on our lips. Here is the core of our spirituality for dark times: to trust the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ to make up for all that we lack today, to forgive us our sins, to give us patient endurance, and to place and keep us on the right path, even when we cannot see the way ahead. And in him we will never be disappointed.

1 Cf. Fleming Rutledge, And God Spoke to Abraham, p. 191.

2 Leslie C. Allen, Psalms 101-150, p. 196.

3 Patrick Miller, Interpreting the Psalms, p. 140.

“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?

“Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits.” (Psalm 103:2)

This week we begin our series, “Spirituality for dark times.”, ‘dark times’ is meant to refer to times of difficulty or struggle that many of us are or may face. So, how do we deal with these “dark times”? As Christians we have a distinctive perspective. We believe in a God who is both in charge of the universe in ways beyond our comprehension and yet incredibly is also totally committed to us at a deeply personal level. For us spirituality is not just a set of practices to make us feel better, but a way of renewing and deepening our faith in the God of Jesus Christ, that reorients our souls from darkness to light.

As recorded at St. Luke’s

Psalm 103 – Out of Darkness

Abide with me

‘Abide with me’ was written by Henry Francis Lyte in 1847 when he was 54, in the last months of his life as his health was failing and he was approaching death. It is a beautiful poem, that struggles with the darkness he is facing in life, but also calls out to God.

Abide with me: fast falls the eventide;

the darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.

When other helpers fail and comforts flee,

Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

The poetry brings home the emotional reality that accompanied Henry Lyte’s life as he approached death:

“fast falls the eventide”

“the darkness deepens”

“helpers fail and comforts flee”

Dark Times?

The history of the world and indeed our lives have their ups and downs.

There can be times of peace and prosperity, but also times of war and poverty.

Certainly, there is much in our world that is causing an increasing sense of darkness for many people today. Wars in the Ukraine and the Middle East, failing economies, crumbling public services, an uncertain political future with the election of Trump in the United States and the increasing power and influence of Elon Musk and the growing concern over climate change and its effects, probably including the catastrophic fires in Los Angeles this week. There is much in our news that speaks of gloom and darkness.

But, even without the concerns of the news, many will face difficult personal circumstances that lead to a sense of darkness. Like Henry Lyte, your health may be failing, or perhaps you are wracked with guilt for past wrongdoings, or perhaps it feels your life is stuck in a pit due to addiction, debt or just the circumstances of life.

Dark times can catch us in life unawares at any time, whether we are a Christian or not. But how can we deal with this darkness? Is there a way out of darkness?

Yes, I think there is. This is where Christian spirituality comes in. Christian spirituality is taking on various activities, that re-orient us to fully grasp what God has done for us and continues to do with and for us. Like Henry Frances Lyte’s famous hymn, itself a great example of Christian spiritual expression, Christian spirituality helps us grasp that God truly does abide with us. More than that it helps us comprehend what that really means.

Praise my Soul – Psalm 103

‘Praise my Soul’ was another hymn written by Henry Lyte earlier in his life. It is probably his best known other hymn. It is based on Psalm 103, which is our reading today.

It is a song of great praise of God, but it is honest about human struggles and frailties, the dark side of life. It talks about our sins, our diseases, of life being stuck in the pit (verses 3-4).

In fact verses 13-17 are used at funerals. Why? In verse 14, it describes the reality of our mortality and the frailty of life in beautiful poetic language: “We are but dust” hints at the idea from Genesis 2 and 3, that God makes us out of dust and when we die, we return to being dust. As the funeral service puts it: “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” We are also like the flowers of the field, we may seem to bloom beautifully for a while, but all too soon we have vanished from the face of the earth, soon to be forgotten as those who knew us also pass away. The reality and frustration of death is not ignored but faced head on.

The Psalm does not ignore the darkness of life, but I think it gives us a way out of darkness. A way that gives us the fundamental clue to Christian spirituality. The Psalm takes us from self-absorption to God-absorption. We come out of darkness by re-orienting our souls to praise God for who He is. As the first line of the Psalm says, “Praise the LORD, my soul!”

The Expanding Psalm

This Psalm  does this by constantly expanding our horizons. It begins with the soul, but ends with the whole of creation.

Praise the LORD, my soul

Firstly, the Psalm starts with the soul.  Indeed, the first line and indeed the first five verses are addressed to ‘my soul’. When your read it and say about God that he ‘forgives all your sins’, you are actually saying that God ‘forgives all my sins.’

This is confusing and strange. Why does he express it in this way?

I think this is the first stage of expanding our horizons. By stepping outside of yourself and your circumstances, feelings and emotions, you gain a slightly expanded perception of reality and can all the more effectively instruct yourself  and so re-orient your thinking. This is perhaps particularly important when life feels particularly dark. We can close in on ourselves and quickly become self-absorbed and self-pitying.

The same technique is used in another Psalm:

“Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.” (Psalm 42:5)

So speaking to yourself, and giving yourself instructions is the first step of expanding our horizons. The second step is to remind ourselves what God does for us. This is what we tell our souls, when we read verses 3-5.

Praise for what God has done for me – vs. 3-5

Darkness of the soul can come in a number of forms as we saw, but the Psalm in broad brush strokes reminds us that is ultimately only God who can rescue us. It emphasises at least three ways in which God does help us:

1. He forgives our sins. That may not be the first thing that you think you need, but knowing that sins are forgiven, that God does not hold us against them, that as the New Testament puts it, “in Christ there is no condemnation” is crucial to grasp if we are going to carry on praising God rather than avoiding him! What is more the psychological release from the burden of guilt can be immense in people’s lives.
2. He heals all your diseases. The promise is not that we will never have disease, either physical or mental, but that God will one day deliver us from them, sometimes miraculously in this life, but certainly in the next.
3. He redeems your life from the pit. Again trusting in God and finding support and new ways of living as one of his people can be the secret to coming out of all kinds of difficult situations in life. But the ultimate promise is to be rescued from the pit that is death.

Without God, life does just become worse and worse, burdened with more and more things to feel guilty about, increasing illness as we become older and ultimately the pit of death. But with God, the promise is that this is not the end.

When we grasp this perspective through praising God, then we can indeed be lifted out of darkness.

Praise for what God has done for his people – vs. 6-10

In verse 6, the Psalm moves on from self-focus to reflect on what God has done for his people. He doesn’t just help me, he helps all the oppressed.

For the Psalmist writing in 1000BC, the great story of God helping the oppressed was the rescue of Israel from slavery in Egypt and bringing them into the promised land. That is where he revealed his saving power to Moses, but also more importantly his key characteristics of steadfast love and compassion.

For us as Christians, we can look to the gospel message of Jesus. How he died for our sins and conquered death for all who follow him. This is the God who works in history for the underdog and the oppressed. He brings people out of darkness and into the light. We need to expand our vision by praising him not just for what he has done for me, but what he has done for all his people.

Praise for the vastness of his love and compassion – vs. 11-14

And the Psalm keeps expanding in the following verses it picks up on those characteristics of love and compassion and shows us both how vast and intimate they are.

He thinks of the greatest distance he can imagine and says that is how great God’s love is. Paul prays a similar thing in Ephesians 3:

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,

may have power, together with all the saints,

to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,

and to know this love that surpasses knowledge–that you may be filled to the measure of all the fulness of God.” (Ephesians 3:17b-19)

At the same time, he highlights the intimacy of this love, by comparing it to a Father having compassion on his children. Again a theme picked up in the New Testament when Jesus teaches us to pray, ‘our Father.’ As the intimate father, God understands and knows the reality of my existence and frailty. That our life is short.

Praise for his eternal commitment – vs. 15-18

Yet, this leads to one of the most beautiful, ‘BUTS’ in the Bible. We are mortal and frail, here one day and gone tomorrow BUT God’s love remains committed to his children. Our hope for eternal life, is rooted in God’s eternal love and commitment to us.

Only with God, is there hope in the face of darkness. Only God can help when death approaches, as Henry Frances Lyte expressed so beautifully in Abide with Me.

Praise for his universal rule – vs. 19-22

So, the Psalm goes on expanding our horizons. We’ve moved from the soul, to God’s benefits to me, to God’s salvation of his people, to the vastness of his love and his eternal commitment to finally his universal rule in verse 19.

This God who loves and cares for me, is the one who is ultimately in charge. That raises questions about why he allows darkness to come now, but is our ultimate source of hope that darkness will not last, that he will indeed lift our lives from the pit.

So as the Psalm has expanded its horizons, so now it calls on the praise to be expanded from the miniscule praise of my soul to the full chorus of heaven! With hosts of angels praising God.

Praise – The Harder and Better way

We have called this series, spirituality for dark times.

At the heart of Christian spirituality is the command to our own souls, to praise God. Not just to intellectually list the good things God has done, but to emotionally and whole heartedly praise him for them. This action of praise is the first step to dealing with the darkness of our world.

But, it is not the easy way.

The easy way: is to try and ignore the darkness and allow ourselves to be constantly distracted by entertainment, social media, gaming or to bury our emotion under addictions of alcohol, drugs or pawn or just the busyness of life. This is the easy way, but it does not lift us out of darkness, it is burying our head in the sand.

The harder way is to give our souls a talking to, as this Psalm does. The harder way is to create space in our lives from distraction and busyness, space to guard our souls and re-orient them to God.

We need to do this with and for others, which is why regularly attending church meetings is so important. There we help one another to focus on praising God.

But we also need to carve out time and space day by day to be with God. Even if it is just 10 minutes each day set aside to be with God, to guard your soul and through Bible reading, prayer and praise to re-orient your soul to the wonderful love of God.