Coming Clean - Psalm 38

I’m going to be super honest….I’m really not feeling it now, so sorry in advance for this heaping pile of bummer, but like The Get Up Kids song down at the bottom of this blog says "To lie would be to compromise and I won't try." Depression has been kind of creeping up and nothing really seems to be ok. For the last week I’ve been struggling with anxiety like I’ve never felt. It is the hopeless frustrations of that anxious feeling every night; the feeling that I can’t really seem to pinpoint its cause is making it hard to keep my head above water per se. There are plenty of platitudes and honest truths that could be pointed to for hope. Look at the cross, go seek help, change your diet, blah blah blah. These things are not really in my power right now or are working.

1 Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger

or discipline me in your wrath.

Enter psalm 38. This psalm is one of only a couple of truly down in the dumps songs. There is no upturn at the end where the psalmist says something like “…but God…” It really is a dude in the dumps saying hey Lord, please don’t give me what I deserve because I just don’t think I’ll survive if You even look at me sideways. He is saying he is so crushed down that he only has an authentic depressed prayer left.

2Your arrows have pierced me,

and your hand has come down on me.

3Because of your wrath there is no health in my body;

there is no soundness in my bones because of my sin.

4My guilt has overwhelmed me

like a burden too heavy to bear.

The thing is that he says is that God has pressed upon him because of his sin. His sin has rotted him from within. I think it is really a good place to start. It’s like The Get Up Kids song Don’t Hate Me, he says “there’s constant reminders, in everything I see…” The David is saying that he cannot get away from the memory and indwelling of his sin. I can say from personal experience that much of my sin weighs on me, even if I have confessed it. My sin from today and all the cumulative sin of my past sits like a stone on my chest. I have fantastic friends that I can talk to about it, and a Lord who has forgiven me, but that feeling doesn’t really seem to ever go away. The church is filled with nonsense like John Owen who says you should foster guilt and kill your sin. Neither of those things is in my power.

The David goes on about his physical infirmities and those who hate him scoffing and looking for him to fall. Probably one the most poignant things he says in the psalm is in verse nine, ten and 15.

9All my longings lie open before you, Lord;

my sighing is not hidden from you.

10My heart pounds, my strength fails me;

even the light has gone from my eyes.

15 Lord, I wait for you;

you will answer, Lord my God.

I lie in bed as my heart beats out of my chest and my weakness is before me as I can’t do anything to un-sabotage myself. He acknowledges that the Lord sees it. But this is not a hopeful confession. Remember this is a down and out psalm. He is trying to talk himself into hope and still half accusing the Lord because He knows. In 15 though he redirects that half accusation and goes on. David is trying everything but as he does I feel the same

17For I am about to fall, and my pain is ever with me.

18I confess my iniquity; I am troubled by my sin.

The confession feels like it falls on deaf ears here in this trough. It’s not a cure all and doesn’t set my heart or his, really, at rest. Desperation sits. His ends the psalm with a hail Mary pass.

21 Lord, do not forsake me; do not be far from me, my God.

22Come quickly to help me, my Lord and my Savior.

He has come. I know that. He came, laid His life down in the place I deserved and died, but as sit typing this, it is hard to feel forgiven. Truly it doesn’t at all feel like light yoke or an easy burden. I’m hoping and praying He hears me and restores me. For now all I have to hold on to is the cross, but this mental suffering is just overwhelming. What I need is what C.S. Lewis says

If God forgives us we must forgive ourselves 
otherwise its like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him.

God, come quick, I am about to fall.

In Christ,

paul

music for the week (as usual: no claim of being not "offensive" but it is really good):