Psalm 30
Exaltabo te, Domine
1 I will exalt you, O Lord,
because you have lifted me up *
and have not let my enemies triumph over me.
2 O Lord my God, I cried out to you, *
and you restored me to health.
3 You brought me up, O Lord, from the dead; *
you restored my life as I was going down to the grave.
4 Sing to the Lord, you servants of his; *
give thanks for the remembrance of his holiness.
5 For his wrath endures but the twinkling of an eye, *
his favor for a lifetime.
6 Weeping may spend the night, *
but joy comes in the morning.
7 While I felt secure, I said,
“I shall never be disturbed. *
You, Lord, with your favor, made me as strong as the mountains.”
8 Then you hid your face, *
and I was filled with fear.
9 I cried to you, O Lord; *
I pleaded with the Lord, saying,
10 “What profit is there in my blood, if I go down to the Pit? *
will the dust praise you or declare your faithfulness?
11 Hear, O Lord, and have mercy upon me; *
O Lord, be my helper.”
12 You have turned my wailing into dancing; *
you have put off my sack-cloth and clothed me with joy.
13 Therefore my heart sings to you without ceasing; *
O Lord my God, I will give you thanks for ever.
It sounds like this psalmist became very sick, to the point of dying and then was healed. The closeness that follows is only possible after the intense struggling and suffering. The gratitude for life can only be that intense when life is almost taken away. Even when someone close to us dies, mixed with our grief, we feel inspiration to appreciate life. That inspiration always feels to me, like God redeeming life from death.
Life isn’t always roses. But as our lives become more absorbed into God’s love, the more the good outweighs the bad. In verse 5 the psalmist reflects how we feel when we look back. Those words would be hard to say during “his wrath”. But over a lifetime of seeking God, it is easy for the writer to feel that way. For some reason all of us remember the good times as a little better than they were and even the bad times we recall with a fondness towards their silver lining.
Despite our awareness and best efforts, somehow we can’t seem to avoid complacency. When we feel super connected with God,(vs. 7-8) we tell ourselves, “I feel so close to God, I can’t imagine ever not feeling this way”, and then we look around and suddenly realize we are no longer close to God. It seems counter intuitive but our confidence hinders us. Its almost like we need something to humble us and make us desperately cry out to God in order to stay close.
We recognize something is amiss and we are no longer joyful and close to the Lord. We make attempts to reason our way out of those situations and use logic with ourselves and God to try to make sense of what is happening(vs. 10). It seems that reasoning is futile and in humbling ourselves and sincerely pressing into God for answers, we become aware that it is we, who in our pride, have moved farther from the Lord. But maybe this time we don’t need to suffer, we just need to humble ourselves(vs 11) and we are restored. And though nothing about whatever situation we are in changes, everything inside us does.
Suffering, whether it is real genuine physical suffering or quiet emotional suffering, we need it to keep us humble. Our maturity is found in the fact that the suffering and struggle we experience when we stray from God causes us to humble ourselves.