A Year In Psalms: Part One

I love honesty. There is nothing like an honest song. For all the well-written poppy hooks, all the sweetly written sentiment, there’s nothing quite like brutal, Dashboard Confessional honesty. Psalms like 51 (the repentance Psalm) and this one reek of a broken heart before God, no pretence, no polish, no attempts at glamourisation. There are places where the Psalms can be hard to identify with, where the Psalmist complains of being the only righteous man in a world full of wicked, simply because for me, the reader, I don’t know what that’s like! I do, however, get verse 2: “But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled / my steps had nearly slipped / For I was envious of the arrogant / when I saw the prosperity of the wicked”.

Asaph shatters two Psalm-myths here: the first being the aforementioned “I am righteous!” claim that if you can identify yourself with, well, that’s a sign you really shouldn’t; the second being the principle of Psalm 1, that bad things happen to bad people and good things happen to good, because Asaph here gets that this isn’t how it works out. In the short term at least, Asaph looks at how evil people cope with life, and it’s pretty cush: no pain until death; all pretty fat, and not in a bad way but in a good-life way (v3); not in trouble or afflicted (v4); their bellies are inflating (v7) as well as their pockets (v12); life is good. Asaph is doing what it is so easy to do: he says “All in vain have I kept my heart clean”. If life is so good for the evil, what’s the point in being good?

This, essentially, is uni life. All around are people getting wasted and having lots of sex, and yet the immediate wrath of God isn’t being revealed... in fact, it looks like they’re getting away with it, and having a better time of it. Thus, the existence of this Psalm in God’s holy, revealed, breathed word is comforting. I am not the first person to feel conflicted about this. It is okay; this doesn’t seem to make sense. Until we see Asaph’s solution: “...until I went into the sanctuary of God / then I discerned their end!” The bigger picture is that God will have his justice: that a life of sin may be good, but the death of the sinner is not. This does not stop it hurting, this does not stop the difference from seeming awkward and unfitting, yet this Psalm tells us, ultimately, that suffering now for righteousness’ sake is better than suffering forever.

That, in itself, would make a good Psalm. But Asaph’s quick repentance is possibly one of the most beautiful (and I don’t really like that word, but it’s the only one that fits) bits of honest poetry ever written (and I’ve read Wilde):

When my soul was embittered
When I was pricked in heart
I was brutish and ignorant
I was like a beast toward you

Nevertheless, I am continually with you
You hold my right hand
You guide me with your counsel
And afterwards, you will receive me into glory

Who have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth I want besides you
My flesh and my heart may fail
But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever

First, grace comes. Not even as we repent (which is a work of the Holy Spirit in us anyway), but while Asaph still envies the evil and resents God, even while we are still in sin, God holds his right hand – he is with us now, in our future life, and in our future death. Even if wallets and bellies shrink to nothing, flesh and heart fail, God is still gracious and provides strength. An honest, brutish, pricked heart before the Lord receives mercy, which satisfies more than the present riches of evil men.

It is good to be near God, I have made him my refuge
That I might tell of all his works