I'm reading the Psalms now; moving my book mark past the pages of the day's two or three meditation readings. Some mornings I find hallelujah's for the God who creates; the God who answers me when I call and puts new songs into the heart that's tired of singing the one it only holds to by obedience. I love the gut-cries of a king who desperately tried to make sense of the enemies taunting, and God's pathway through shame and defeat when the prideful longed to be acknowledged as the royal. David knew that God would not reject forever, but that the moments of silence were necessary, so that the harder seek would follow with more depth and wonder. His God was not satisfied with a liturgical offering, but with a heart that busted wide open and bled because of the wicked within. David would cry, "You know me!", and he would take comfort in that knowing--even in the midst of his greatest moments of sin.
I think this is why the words on these tear-stained pages of my Bible are most precious to me. I, too, have waited patiently for the Lord. I, too, have cried out, "Your face, O Lord, I shall seek (so please don't hide it from me!)". And I also believe that I will see His goodness, that I will lie down beside the still waters, that I will again shout for joy.
But until that day, until that distant one moment that my trusting heart knows will come, I must wait in silence.
David asked, "When will my Helper come?", because he did not know the hour of his release, and neither do I. But I have someone David did not--I have God's very own Spirit living within me, assuring me that He is constant. He is not absent, nor do I have to call Him out of some dark place where He resides in solidarity. He will speak from the place He has been sitting in during all of my wrestling moments, and His presence within me assures my mind that He will not leave me...ever.
I picture my hand moving its way into the hollow space of a worn seat where Presence has sat but now moves from, beckoning me to follow Him to a new place. The moving is hard, and the path is uncertain, but the hand is taken and guided along the unfamiliar, and the heart rests in the help of Presence. Despair wanes as the grip tightens, and the praise that was tucked inside long ago in the joy moments makes it way to the lips of the once again, and the voice rises to sing.
