Beating the Blues
Beating the Blues
Psalm 31:9-20 (NASB95)
9 Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; My eye is wasted away from grief, my soul and my body also. 10 For my life is spent with sorrow And my years with sighing; My strength has failed because of my iniquity, And my body has wasted away. 11 Because of all my adversaries, I have become a reproach, Especially to my neighbors, And an object of dread to my acquaintances; Those who see me in the street flee from me. 12 I am forgotten as a dead man, out of mind; I am like a broken vessel. 13 For I have heard the slander of many, Terror is on every side; While they took counsel together against me, They schemed to take away my life. 14 But as for me, I trust in You, O Lord, I say, “You are my God.” 15 My times are in Your hand; Deliver me from the hand of my enemies and from those who persecute me. 16 Make Your face to shine upon Your servant; Save me in Your lovingkindness. 17 Let me not be put to shame, O Lord, for I call upon You; Let the wicked be put to shame, let them be silent in Sheol. 18 Let the lying lips be mute, Which speak arrogantly against the righteous With pride and contempt. 19 How great is Your goodness, Which You have stored up for those who fear You, Which You have wrought for those who take refuge in You, Before the sons of men! 20 You hide them in the secret place of Your presence from the conspiracies of man; You keep them secretly in a shelter from the strife of tongues.
1) What are the blues?
Psalm 31:9 Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; My eye is wasted away from grief, my soul and my body also. 10 For my life is spent with sorrow And my years with sighing; My strength has failed because of my iniquity, And my body has wasted away.
The Bible calls it distress?- tsarar /tsaw·rar/
· Narrow, tight. -ṣar I describes something as narrow, e.g. a place where one can travel in only one direction (Num 22:26). A narrow river has a rushing current (Isa 59:19).)
· Distress, trouble. Describes the personal anguish one encounters in adverse circumstances: e.g. the great distress which comes from the death of a close friend (II Sam 1:26) or from God’s refusal to give help or direction (Job 7:11; cf. I Sam 28:15; Isa 25:4; 63:9).
· צָרָה (ṣārâ). Straits, distress. It indicates intense inner turmoil (Ps 25:17). It describes the anguish of a people besieged by an enemy. It is comparable to the pain of a woman bearing her first child (Jer 4:31
Distress is a place where everything seems to be going a certain way with great velocity. It is a place of personal pain, turmoil, and pain. A.K.A. The Blues
2) How Do I Deal With The Blues?
a) Acknowledge the battle-
Psalm 31:12 … I am like a broken vessel.
The battle can be physical, but we deal in the realm of the spirit.
b) Don’t listen to the lies
Psalm 31:13 For I have heard the slander of many, Terror is on every side; While they took counsel together against me, They schemed to take away my life.
David was wiggin out because of what everyone was saying about him.
- You fight a lie with truth.
John 17:17 “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.
To sanctify means to separate from profane things and dedicate to God. To consecrate things to God. To dedicate people to God. To purify. To cleanse externally
- Bring God into the equation, acknowledge the battle (power in naming), and prepare to take back ground.
Psalm 3114 But as for me, I trust in You, O Lord, I say, “You are my God.”
David was broken, people where speaking ill of him, and probably feeling a multitude of other emotions that go along with the Blues.
c) God works in the light.
2 Peter 1:19 So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.
Denial is not a river in Egypt bring it to the light expose the works of the devil
Our journey during the Blue seasons is to draw to the light. To find Christ.
John of the Cross- When entering the “season of the dark” remember what Christ last said and cross over.”
3) Endure the Blue Season of The Soul-
Psalm 31:19 How great is Your goodness, Which You have stored up for those who fear You, Which You have wrought for those who take refuge in You, Before the sons of men! 20 You hide them in the secret place of Your presence from the conspiracies of man; You keep them secretly in a shelter from the strife of tongues.
a) What Is " The Blue Season Of The Soul "?
Dark Night of the Soul
"Dark night of the soul" sounds like a threatening and much to be avoided experience. Yet perhaps a quarter of the seekers on the road to higher consciousness will pass through the dark night. In fact, they may pass through several until they experience the profound joy of their true nature.
Many seekers would encourage the dark night experience if they knew what it was. However, to one engaged in the dark night, suffering seems unending.
The dark night occurs after considerable advancement toward higher consciousness. Indeed, the dark night usually occurs like an initiation before one of these special seekers is admitted into regular relationship with higher consciousness. The dark night also occurs to those who do not seek relationship but immersion or unity in the higher consciousness.
Different Labels for the Dark Night
This night season has been given several names:
o The Dark Night of the Soul o The Dark Night of the Spirit
o Night of Confusion o Jacob's Ladder o A Secret Ladder
o The Night Seasono The Divine Darkness
o Journey into the Desert o Cloud of Unknowing
o A Wall o God's Fire of Love
· The Blue Season of The Soul are those times where we seem to be in distress, God appears to be quiet, and there seems to be little God-Life going on.
Listen to how Francois Fenelon (in the 1600s) describes the dark it in his book
The Seeking Heart:
God will eventually test you in all areas of your life, but He will not let your
trials become greater than you can bear. Let God use trials to help you grow. Do not measure your progress, your strength or what God is doing. His work is not less efficient because what He is doing is invisible. Much of God's work is done in secret because you would not die to yourself if He always visibly stretched out His hand to save you. God does not transform you on a bed of light, life and grace. His transformation is done on the cross in darkness, poverty and death.
b) What happens to our faith in the night seasons?
· We know that faith is simply being fully persuaded that God will do all that He has promised to do in His timing and in His way.
· We also know that God continually pushes us to the limit in order to strengthen our faith and transform us into His image.
· When we willingly allow Him to purge our souls of sin and self, He can then easily accomplish His will. However, when we block and prevent God from doing these things in our lives, either out of ignorance or disobedience, He sometimes will take matters into His own hands; i.e., the night seasons.
· The dark night or the night season is simply the transition we make from depending upon our own sight and our own selves to a total dependence upon Christ and His faithfulness. This shift brings us into a new way of knowing God. During this time God moves us from simply "feeling good about Him" to a deeper awareness of Him and an intimacy never before known.
· Although we already belong to Christ and we already love Him, our union with Him will be incomplete as long as our mind, our judgment, our desires, our habits and our ideas are still our own. God wants to rid us of our preoccupation with sight and feelings and bring us into a new freedom and liberty of faith. Unfortunately, this freeing process does not happen automatically.
Most of us do not jump for joy when faced with the prospect of brokenness. Naturally, most of us run the other direction. But God loves us so much that He doesn't let us get very far. The dark night is God's way of turning us around and forcing us to allow Him to do whatever is necessary in our lives to purge our souls and spirits so that we can have intimate fellowship with Him.
God is not a "mean" guy up in heaven waiting to send us bad things. He is a loving Father who knows exactly what we need in order to accomplish His will in our lives. He knows that we will never be content, never enjoy real freedom and never be truly fulfilled, until we are "experientially" one with Him .
c) An Analogy of the Blue Season
This analogy by George MacDonald: was emailed to me recently. It's called The Moth and the Cocoon”
A man found a cocoon of an emperor moth. He took it home so that he could watch the moth come out of the cocoon. On the day a small opening appeared, he sat and watched the moth for several hours as the moth struggled to force its body through that little hole.
Then, it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no farther. It just seemed to be stuck. The man, in his kindness, decided to help the moth. So he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The moth then emerged easily. But, it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings.
The man continued to watch the moth because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would then contract. Neither happened! In fact, the little moth spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.
What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon, and the struggle required for the moth to get through the tiny opening, were God's way of forcing fluid from the body of the moth into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon. Freedom and flight would come only after the struggle. By depriving the moth of this struggle, he deprived the moth of health.
Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life in order to make us all that God desires. If God allowed us to go through our life without obstacles, it would cripple us.
3) How Much Do You Trust God In The Blue Seasons?
Psalm 31:19 How great is Your goodness, Which You have stored up for those who fear You, Which You have wrought for those who take refuge in You, Before the sons of men! 20 You hide them in the secret place of Your presence from the conspiracies of man; You keep them secretly in a shelter from the strife of tongues.
The bottom line is:
David is in distress, he is in a blue season. David knows that God is his only resource, man has failed him and he calls to him and he rescues him from the Blue Season.
9 Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress… But as for me, I trust in You, O Lord, I say, “You are my God.” 15 My times are in Your hand; Deliver me from the hand of my enemies and from those who persecute me. 16 Make Your face to shine upon Your servant; Save me in Your lovingkindness. 17 Let me not be put to shame, O Lord, for I call upon You; Let the wicked be put to shame, let them be silent in Sheol. 18 Let the lying lips be mute, Which speak arrogantly against the righteous With pride and contempt. 19 How great is Your goodness, Which You have stored up for those who fear You, Which You have wrought for those who take refuge in You, Before the sons of men! 20 You hide them in the secret place of Your presence from the conspiracies of man; You keep them secretly in a shelter from the strife of tongues.
Are you in a blue season? Are the heavens quiet and the persecution intense? Does it seem like the narrow place? Rejoice, victory is on its way.