Communicating Through The Pain
THE PSALMIST’S SENSE of desperation is voiced in a series of pleas to God that expand in almost inexorable fashion:
Look! Answer me, O Yahweh my God.
Cause my eyes to shine6 lest I sleep in death,
Lest my enemy say, “I have overcome him!”
(Lest) my oppressor rejoice that I am shaken.7
Without the hoped-for divine intervention, the psalmist can only anticipate rapid decline, defeat, and death.
THIS PSALM CONCLUDES with an unanticipated expression of trust and confidence. As unexpected as such a turn might seem in any individual lament psalm, it is actually more common than one would think for laments to turn to confidence at the end.8 In this case the psalmist’s trust is based on an understanding of the character of God as well as the psalmist’s previous experience of goodness from Yahweh’s hand.
Your unfailing love. The psalmist finds the grounds for hope in Yahweh’s ḥesed—translated here as “unfailing love.” The term has more of “loyalty” or “enduring allegiance” about it than the emotions we normally associate with “love.” The context is one of commitment to a covenantal agreement between parties—perhaps a king and a vassal. The covenant partner who demonstrates enduring loyalty to the covenant relationship and faithfully fulfills his covenant obligations, not because he is forced to but because of a sense of commitment to the relationship—such a person is said to do ḥesed (“unfailing [covenant] love”).
In the case of Yahweh and Israel, Yahweh has freely chosen to enter into a covenant relationship with Israel to be her God while she is his people. Yahweh chooses this relationship, not because of Israel’s greatness but simply because he loves Israel and desires to fulfill faithfully the promises made to the patriarchs (Deut. 7:7–8). That is ḥesed. Even when Israel fails in her commitment to her covenant obligations (as in the monarchy before the Exile), her God remains faithful. Though he may punish Israel for her sins, he remains true to his purpose for her. That is why Israel can continue to hope for restoration in the face of the loss and destruction of the Exile. That too is why the psalmist can continue to hope for personal restoration even as death is at the door. Therefore, his heart can rejoice in Yahweh’s anticipated salvation (Ps. 13:5), and he can sing songs concerning Yahweh’s goodness (13:6).9
RESPONDING TO A sense of God’s absence. Many in today’s world live out of a sense of abandonment. The existential philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre calls this sense of loss of the divine the “condemnation of freedom,” because without God everything is permissible and nothing has any true significance or purpose. As a result, each human is “forlorn, because neither within him nor without does he find anything to cling to.”17
There are several possible responses to this sense of abandonment. Some assume that God has withdrawn or hidden himself because he doesn’t want to associate with me. This attitude assumes that I am the root cause of God’s apparent absence. Many today struggle with such feelings of unworthiness, believing that abandonment by parents or even active abuse is the result of some wrong within themselves rather than brokenness within the parents or abusers. The psalmist of Psalm 13 talks of wrestling with thoughts and experiencing daily sorrow in the heart. Such inner turmoil often grows out of self-condemnation and can lead to anger, paralysis, and despair.
Others respond to the hiddenness of God by denying his existence altogether. If God is out of the picture, then humans are left entirely to their own devices. The only avenue available is to rely on self-power and self-control. When God is removed, we are left to make our own way in the world.
The third possible response is that mirrored in Psalm 13: to “wait” on God as an acknowledgment of our own powerlessness and dependence on him. This need not be silent suffering, for both Job and our psalmist fill the void with their questions and appeals to God. And that is as it should be. The continuing conversation, even though one-sided, affirms the relationship—just as a father estranged from his son (or vice versa) continues to write letters even when no response is received.
The lessons the Psalter offers regarding divine absence include the following.
• The experience of divine abandonment is real and painful and is rightfully brought to God in laments and questions. God is not offended by our honest questions or even our heated complaints. Both confirm our desire for relationship and our faith that all is not as it should be.
• Divine absence need not be seen as the result of some failing within ourselves. Even the righteous suffer, and indeed suffering without divine intervention can be understood as one of the hallmarks of faithful living.
• Suffering the absence of God can be redemptive as others are brought to realize through our experience that the painful realities of life do not deny the existence, power, and compassionate concern of our God.
• God is worth holding on to faithfully even when we do not experience him as present.
Regaining a sense of God’s presence. Finally, we must consider some practical responses to the question: “When God is absent, how do we regain a sense of his presence?” I will offer three from personal experience.
Voicing our complaint. Whenever we experience God as absent, we must vocalize our experience openly and honestly. I am not speaking here of talking incessantly to our family and friends about how distant we feel removed from God or complaining about how alone we feel. I mean instead that we should talk openly and honestly to God about our sense of abandonment. I don’t know what form this conversation may take for you, but personally I have found two avenues for carrying my own complaint directly to God.
One is through writing poetry that reflects the inward turmoil and anguish I am feeling. This is for me an effective way of opening up my spiritual and emotional wound to the sight of God. Journaling is a similar concrete way of expressing inner reflection in a less poetic form.
The other way I have conversed with an absent creator is through audible, spoken words. This is best pursued for me when I am alone—perhaps in the car or on a walk in the woods. I don’t want to be observed by those who might fear I am becoming unhinged. But actually speaking the words I think and feel has a way of getting out of my head and objectifying them. It also gives God a certain presence as the one to whom I am speaking—walking alongside me or sitting in the passenger seat of my car. By voicing my complaints—really voicing them—I acknowledge a continuing connection with God where none is immediately apparent.
Getting out of ourselves. Another way to begin to restore a sense of God’s presence is to turn my attention away from myself to others. When I focus on myself, I tend to increase my sense of isolation and aloneness. But when I turn my eyes and hands to others in compassionate caring and service, I bring them into my world and break my self-imposed silence. It is amazing how seeking the welfare of others opens me to the gracious action of God in their lives and ultimately in my own.
In the recent film Life Is Beautiful, a Jewish father who is taken to a Nazi concentration camp with his five- or six-year-old son chooses to carry on an elaborate fiction to protect his son from the desperate reality of their situation. They are in a competition to win an awesome prize and must be willing to suffer the constraints of the camp to ensure their chance of winning. The father mugs, spins tales, coerces the rest of the inmates into his conspiracy, and ultimately struts comically to his death in order to preserve the hope of his young son. Along the way the father communicates to his son, his wife, and other inmates that regardless of the ugly spin that humanity can put on it at times, life as God intends it is beautiful, and that beauty must be held on to even in life’s darkest moments.
In the community of faith. Finally, when God is absent for me, it is possible to catch a glimpse of him—or at least a testimony of his presence—when I stand within the community of faith. When I sit or stand shoulder to shoulder with my fellow Christians in worship, I can hear songs of praise to God even when my own heart is silent. Communion with God’s people is a down payment on the promise with which the psalmist concludes Psalm 13: “I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, for he has been good to me.”
Psalm 14
RESPONDING TO A sense of God’s absence. Many in today’s world live out of a sense of abandonment. The existential philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre calls this sense of loss of the divine the “condemnation of freedom,” because without God everything is permissible and nothing has any true significance or purpose. As a result, each human is “forlorn, because neither within him nor without does he find anything to cling to.”17
There are several possible responses to this sense of abandonment. Some assume that God has withdrawn or hidden himself because he doesn’t want to associate with me. This attitude assumes that I am the root cause of God’s apparent absence. Many today struggle with such feelings of unworthiness, believing that abandonment by parents or even active abuse is the result of some wrong within themselves rather than brokenness within the parents or abusers. The psalmist of Psalm 13 talks of wrestling with thoughts and experiencing daily sorrow in the heart. Such inner turmoil often grows out of self-condemnation and can lead to anger, paralysis, and despair.
Others respond to the hiddenness of God by denying his existence altogether. If God is out of the picture, then humans are left entirely to their own devices. The only avenue available is to rely on self-power and self-control. When God is removed, we are left to make our own way in the world.
The third possible response is that mirrored in Psalm 13: to “wait” on God as an acknowledgment of our own powerlessness and dependence on him. This need not be silent suffering, for both Job and our psalmist fill the void with their questions and appeals to God. And that is as it should be. The continuing conversation, even though one-sided, affirms the relationship—just as a father estranged from his son (or vice versa) continues to write letters even when no response is received.
The lessons the Psalter offers regarding divine absence include the following.
• The experience of divine abandonment is real and painful and is rightfully brought to God in laments and questions. God is not offended by our honest questions or even our heated complaints. Both confirm our desire for relationship and our faith that all is not as it should be.
• Divine absence need not be seen as the result of some failing within ourselves. Even the righteous suffer, and indeed suffering without divine intervention can be understood as one of the hallmarks of faithful living.
• Suffering the absence of God can be redemptive as others are brought to realize through our experience that the painful realities of life do not deny the existence, power, and compassionate concern of our God.
• God is worth holding on to faithfully even when we do not experience him as present.
Regaining a sense of God’s presence. Finally, we must consider some practical responses to the question: “When God is absent, how do we regain a sense of his presence?” I will offer three from personal experience.
Voicing our complaint. Whenever we experience God as absent, we must vocalize our experience openly and honestly. I am not speaking here of talking incessantly to our family and friends about how distant we feel removed from God or complaining about how alone we feel. I mean instead that we should talk openly and honestly to God about our sense of abandonment. I don’t know what form this conversation may take for you, but personally I have found two avenues for carrying my own complaint directly to God.
One is through writing poetry that reflects the inward turmoil and anguish I am feeling. This is for me an effective way of opening up my spiritual and emotional wound to the sight of God. Journaling is a similar concrete way of expressing inner reflection in a less poetic form.
The other way I have conversed with an absent creator is through audible, spoken words. This is best pursued for me when I am alone—perhaps in the car or on a walk in the woods. I don’t want to be observed by those who might fear I am becoming unhinged. But actually speaking the words I think and feel has a way of getting out of my head and objectifying them. It also gives God a certain presence as the one to whom I am speaking—walking alongside me or sitting in the passenger seat of my car. By voicing my complaints—really voicing them—I acknowledge a continuing connection with God where none is immediately apparent.
Getting out of ourselves. Another way to begin to restore a sense of God’s presence is to turn my attention away from myself to others. When I focus on myself, I tend to increase my sense of isolation and aloneness. But when I turn my eyes and hands to others in compassionate caring and service, I bring them into my world and break my self-imposed silence. It is amazing how seeking the welfare of others opens me to the gracious action of God in their lives and ultimately in my own.
In the recent film Life Is Beautiful, a Jewish father who is taken to a Nazi concentration camp with his five- or six-year-old son chooses to carry on an elaborate fiction to protect his son from the desperate reality of their situation. They are in a competition to win an awesome prize and must be willing to suffer the constraints of the camp to ensure their chance of winning. The father mugs, spins tales, coerces the rest of the inmates into his conspiracy, and ultimately struts comically to his death in order to preserve the hope of his young son. Along the way the father communicates to his son, his wife, and other inmates that regardless of the ugly spin that humanity can put on it at times, life as God intends it is beautiful, and that beauty must be held on to even in life’s darkest moments.
In the community of faith. Finally, when God is absent for me, it is possible to catch a glimpse of him—or at least a testimony of his presence—when I stand within the community of faith. When I sit or stand shoulder to shoulder with my fellow Christians in worship, I can hear songs of praise to God even when my own heart is silent. Communion with God’s people is a down payment on the promise with which the psalmist concludes Psalm 13: “I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, for he has been good to me.”