Tag Archives: christian

A Call to Read the Psalms

This week I am not brimming with something to talk about. I could delve into my perennial frustration with being a human. I could talk about the subjugation of friendship to media platforms. I have much to say about homeschooling influencers and the unbelievable amount of people who are preying on parents who just want to do what is best for their kids.

My husband said I could write about what I thought about the sermon this morning. I don’t feel like I have much to say, but here goes . . .

The sermon was about Psalm 34. The church with which we’re currently worshipping is doing a summer series on Psalms with various preachers. Psalms can be overlooked or seen as supplemental to understanding YHWH. When I was younger, I spent the majority of my time in the New Testament and was always making note of the commands so I could follow them. (I was terrified of being “no better than the demons”, and I didn’t truly grasp that I was literally incapable of obeying on my own. That is a whole different post.) Psalms felt like something older people who already were good at obeying might read. It is a pattern I observed, that older people quoted more from Psalms than the younger people. And older people seemed to cling to the Psalms in a way I couldn’t quite understand. I assumed that it was because of their maturity.

Well, I know I am not mature, but in the last few years I have discovered that nothing compares with the Psalms if you want to know who God is and who you are as a believer, and how He works in the world. Are you wondering if you’re worth anything? Psalm 139. Are you frustrated that people who want nothing to do with God or His ways seem to prosper? Psalm 73. Are you wondering if He could possibly still love you after all you have done? Psalm 51. Feel forgotten? Psalm 86. Those are just off the top of my head. I am sure someone more diligent than I has already compiled an index of Psalms. But really, nothing beats just reading them regularly and finding their words rising to your mind in those moments of uncertainty or joy.

Psalm 34 is in essence of psalm of triumph; David had escaped from the Philistine king and was extolling God for this. Like most psalms, it masterfully weaves human emotion with God’s unshakable glory.

Taste and see that the Lord is good.
    Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him!
Fear the Lord, you his godly people,
    for those who fear him will have all they need.

While we love to quote “taste and see”, David didn’t forget that the fear of the Lord, taking refuge in Him, is a requirement for tasting that goodness. I know the analytic among us will likely see this as condition for God’s love. All I can say to that is this: if you read the Psalms, you will find a better argument for trusting God than all the explanations I can give. His steadfast love endures forever. He is worthy of praise. His mercy is unfathomable and He desires His people in a way that would make most sensible people blush.

I love to make much of God’s mercy, but I can’t do that without also making much of His worthiness . . . and I fear in making much of His holiness, majesty, glory I lose the people He wants to save and further entrench those of whom He said, “I never knew you.” This is my failure, but the Psalms show the way:

Unfailing love and truth have met together.
    Righteousness and peace have kissed! – Psalm 85:10

Read the Psalms.

Excuses

My latest excuse for not posting online is that I don’t want to feed the LLMs. I figure if I post something on the internet it’s fair game; the AI goblins will surely gobble it up and spit it out as some Foundmercified version of whatever ugliness it reflects back at the fools who eat up its psuedo-psychobabble.

I am rusty. That’s the real reason I don’t write much: I try to put out something meaningful and it either feels disjointed or smacks of the social media I spent too many hours consuming. I haven’t read enough real books lately. I discovered Substack in the last year, and while at first I was thrilled with the longer form content I quickly got sucked into the Notes page and scroll-scroll-scrolled my brain to mush.

My brain isn’t mush, but it is moving slower. I have so many thoughts, but everything else takes precedence. Part of that is as it should be. I take care of more than a few people; I have some special needs to tend to among my charges and myself as well. I do wonder if my soul wouldn’t benefit from a bit more of this, however. Simply the tactile experience of typing scratches an itch I sometimes believe will drive me up a wall and is often left un-scratched.

My latest thought is about confirmation bias, and how if I am not guarding against it, I can wreck my mental state before I have had a chance to get out of bed in the morning. The tricky thing is remembering that a large portion of what occurs around us and even towards us is neutral; we assign meaning to events based on our preconceived beliefs.

For example, I want to believe that my children arguing with each other is evidence that I am a horrible person whose influence they should be far removed from. (My English teacher would fix that sentence; I know it’s clunky.) The truth is, my children argue with each other for myriad reasons, and my influence is just one factor.

I have wrestled deeply with why I want so much to believe lies about myself, and why it is so difficult to rewrite the scripts. I think the answer is actually stupid simple: I want to believe hurtful things because somewhere along the way those beliefs seemed to help me, and my sin-wrecked body and brain take time to catch up to my renewed soul — because of pride-driven confirmation bias.

I have to have compassion on the dead-and-dying old me, because the new-in-Christ me was only ever rescued by unfathomable mercy. When I catch myself collecting evidence for some garbage belief, I am learning to ask myself, “What if I’m wrong? What if I’m not {fill in the blank with just about every hurtful adjective you can imagine}? What if I am who God says I am?”

I can’t jump straight to affirmations. Telling myself I am a new creation doesn’t unravel the yarn. I have to start where I am; if I am in the middle of spinning a tale that depends heavily on me being {insert adjective}, I have to stop it by first asking myself if I’m sure that I’m right.

Confirmation bias isn’t entirely evil; it is a function of our brains’ amazing streamlining abilities. Why question everything all the time? That is exhausting. Eventually, confirmation bias will work in my favor as the lies are less reinforced and the truth becomes the more worn neural pathway.

But in the meantime, maybe I should write and post more because I need to put more evidence out there that God has given me a means to bless people with words. I could use a bit more evidence that, despite being rusty, I still have a gift. I have a purpose beyond meeting the needs of my family — high purpose though that may be, and more than enough if I didn’t possess gifts outside of an ability to tend to needs. (I must say, I do not feel gifted in that at all, actually, but it does feel like a gift to me that I am able to do the laundry, dishes, homeschooling, etc.) Maybe writing and sharing my writing will help me overcome some of my “all I’m good at is cleaning and accounting”, self-protective lies.

But in the meantime, though it’s not much, I do hope this little article blesses someone. If I made you think, or made you laugh, let me know.

SDG