Learning How to Worship: Psalm 55

Throughout this series we have been posting our reflections on specific psalms and taking from them something we can apply to our lives as we attempt to live a life of worship to our God and King. Looking back on the last few posts I was struck, well of course it is easy to worship God when we read Psalm 8, Psalm 19, Psalm 23, 42, or the penitential desire of Psalm 51… God is listening, God is near, God is active.

But what about those times when He feels distant?

What about when we have been so beaten and battered by life, by un-hopeful circumstances that surround us?

When we are in anguish?

What about when we truly feel like we have been unjustly accused?

Wronged.

Hurt.

Where the bleeding just won’t stop from a deep emotional wound.

How do we worship in those moments?

I picked Psalm 55 for this topic specifically. Not only is it a Psalm of Lament, written by David during a dark time of his life, but I have some personal history with this particular psalm.

Now I am not suggesting that I had a brush with death or that I was literally on the run for my life from enemies attacking me… but like most people at least at some point in life, I had a series of tragedies hit me all at once. 

David is writing as one who has had enemies launch a slanderous and unjustified attack on him. He wants to flee, but he is unable to. For me, these tragedies hit me all at once while I was at college. I was in the middle of a semester and studying for midterms. I couldn’t leave. I had to stand and endure the challenges, away from family and away from my church home (which both had some things to do with the actual issue causing me so much pain). I was stuck in the anguish, stuck alone. Just like David, I was unable to flee the circumstances. 

Have you been there?

What I had was my friends.

I had my dorm brothers and my colleagues to surround me and support me. 

I was privileged with that, not everyone has that kind of support structure in place when tragedy hits.

David attempted to find solace in the exact same thing. He had his loyal supporters and his family/friends with him. However, the agony and distress for him was multiplied by the discovery that a trusted friend, a companion, had betrayed him and began conspiring against him with the original enemies.

And all I can say is... I understand the feeling, David.

In the midst of my own hurt was an encounter with “a familiar friend” who betrayed my trust as well. In the midst of my pain and mourning of losses in many areas of my life I had one of my absolute closest friends turn against me in a very antagonistic way. This experience allowed me to resonate my deep emotional anguish with David’s when he said,

“It is not an enemy who taunts me—

I could bear that.

It is not my foes who so arrogantly insult me—

I could have hidden from them.

Instead, it is you—my equal,

my companion and close friend.

What good fellowship we once enjoyed

as we walked together to the house of God.” (NLT)

What was I to do? 

What was David to do? 

We couldn’t fight evil with evil. We couldn’t even really comprehend what just took place. Our close friends, the ones who should have been a strong support structure in place for us became the biggest issue we faced. With one move, a complete 180 degree switch. David prayed that the antagonist would fall into the judgment of God.

I came across this Psalm very soon after my discovery and desired so desperately to pray the same word of judgment on my friend. In fact I may even have done so on a few occasions. Yet I was also seeking some kind of reconciliation at the same time. 

That is incredibly difficult to do by the way.

When David was writing this psalm it is hard to imagine the anguish he was probably undergoing. Most of the laments in the psalms are like this, it is hard sometimes for us to find how we can worship in the midst of troubling times. But these are given to us as an example that it is truly possible to praise our God and King even in the midst of storms and troubled times. When the world is shaking and we feel like we cannot go any further… we can look to these Psalms and find hope.

But I will call on God,

and the LORD will rescue me.

 Morning, noon, and night

I cry out in my distress,

and the LORD hears my voice.

He ransoms me and keeps me safe

from the battle waged against me,

though many still oppose me.

God, who has ruled forever,

will hear me and humble them. (v. 16-19 NLT)

Give your burdens to the LORD,

and he will take care of you.

He will not permit the godly to slip and fall. (v. 22 NLT)

I have to say that this psalm gave me the hope I needed to continue moving forward… pass my classes and begin dealing with each issue one at a time.

Hope is how just about all of these laments end. The psalmists end their complaint and plea with a measure of confidence in the steadfast love of God. Because though they were written in the Old Testament with psalmists looking forward to the day of God’s salvation, WE can read them in light of the hope that God in Christ has already offered us. We have the Spirit of God interceding for us, reconciling us to God and giving us the responsibility, power, and desire to reconcile the world back to Christ.

This psalm, like others, was never written (in my opinion), for the studious exegete. It was written as an emotional plea. Attacked by enemies, betrayed by friends, David is crying out to God for mercy and for the weight to be lifted. 

When going through turbulent life issues, we can find in the Psalms a God who listens to our cries for help, for an end to sufferings… for… relief. This God we find is the God who we recognize as our only hope. What I see in this psalm is that though the times were unbearable, David never succumbed to despair. He had confidence in his God for salvation and deliverance from his enemies and his situation.

I am reminded of something the Apostle Paul wrote in his second letter to the Corinthian church,

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.

-2 Cor. 4:7-10

To end this post, I want to draw attention to something Spurgeon mentions in his Treasury of David commentary. 

It would be idle to fix a time, and find an occasion for this Psalm with any dogmatism. It reads like a song of the time of Absalom and Ahithophel. It was after David had enjoyed peaceful worship (Ps 55:14), when he was or had just been a dweller in a city (Ps 55:9-11), and when he remembered his former roamings in the wilderness. Altogether it seems to us to relate to that mournful era when the King was betrayed by his trusted counsellor. The spiritual eye ever and anon sees the Son of David and Judas, and the chief priests appearing and disappearing upon the glowing canvas of the Psalm.

Spurgeon notes that he sees the Passion of Jesus in this psalm.

Jesus, the unjustly accused one, enemies speaking falsely, attacking Him, and sentencing Him to death. 

Jesus, the one who had a close companion betray Him, another deny Him. 

Jesus, the Son of David, the fulfill-er of this psalm, and the one on whom all the judgment is cast. The one who interceded for us and took the weight.

Yet, it is Jesus, who hung His confidence on the plan of His Father as His body hung tattered on a cross. 

He trusted in God in the most meaningful, important, and wonderful way. This Psalm is a prayer that in many ways shares the Gospel story. Perhaps it is a stretch, but when reading this Psalm as the story of Jesus I’m again reminded of Paul writing, this time to the Church in Rome,

We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.

-Romans 5:3-11 NLT

-----

 

Nathan Bryant

is a pastor at River Run Church in East Orlando, FL. As a student at Ozark Christian College in Joplin, Missouri he majored in Biblical Leadership, New Testament Studies, and Missiology.  In 2014 he attended the Leadership Institute in Phoenix, AZ where he continued his education from other pastors and educators at one of the fastest growing churches in the United States. He loves the outdoors, whether it is camping in the mountains or jumping through the waves at the beach, nothing is better than enjoying God’s creation. Nathan longs for unity and commitment to Jesus to be a defining element in the global church of his generation.

Christ's Kingdom is bigger than our causes.

Christ's Kingdom is bigger than our boundaries.

Follow him on Twitter: Follow @nathanpbryant

Nathan's Website