Communication between people takes place at three levels: the frivolous level,
the factual level, and the feeling level.
Frivolous communication takes place on the surface with the use of innocuous questions and casual clichés. How are you doing? Looks like it going to rain today? What do you do for a living? That's communication on the frivolous level, the kind of communication we have with strangers.
Factual communication goes a little deeper with the discussion of things in which two parties are vitally interested. We are still $10,000 short of our goal. What is your strategy for getting people to vote? How about them Cowboys!
That's communication on the factual level, the kind of communication we have with acquaintances.
Feeling communication takes place at the deepest level with the expression of our feelings about what is happening around us. I don't believe you are doing your part. Why do you always gripe and about everything I do? I really love you.
That's communication at the feeling level, the kind of communication we have with our closest friends.
Of course it's not that simple.
We communicate with our friends at the frivolous level at times sometimes we communicate with strangers at the feeling level. But the principle still stands:
the more intimate the relationship, the deeper the level of our communication.
That is true of our human relationships; it is equally true of our relationship with God. At the beginning of our relationship with God, we are like a teenager with a new car. Full of excitement. Thrilled. Totally clueless about the dangers involved in operating that vehicle.
That's the way we are as new Christians. Someone suggested we need to lock up new Christians for about six months before we let them out. Full of excitement.
Thankful to God for the new life we have in Christ. We have God and life is good. We might call this the "honeymoon" period of our relationship with God.
However, as we move to a deeper level in our relationship with God we begin to be confronted by some paradoxes.
God assured us He would never leave us; yet at times we cannot sense His presence in our lives. God rules over all creation; yet evil often seems to have the upper hand.
God promised to guide us; yet there are moments when He seems to have left us in the lurch. God offered abundant life; yet this life is frequently filled with pain. How do we respond to these paradoxes of life?
Some cover them up with pasted on smiles and hollow hallelujahs. Others blame them on their lack of faith and try harder. Some silently slip away and become alumnus of the church. There is a better way and that is to lay these paradoxes before God in the language of complaint. We learn about this language of complaint in Psalm 13.
Traditionally, psalms like this one we are considering today are referred to as the lament psalms. They are found throughout the book of Psalms. In fact, more lament psalms appear in the book of Psalms than any other type. One scholar identifies 50 individual laments and 17 community laments.
Psalm 13 is a stereotypical lament psalm. One commentator suggested the six verses of this psalm take us through three stages: from a long, deep sigh in verses 1-2, to a much more gentle prayer in verses 3-4, to a believing joy in verses 5-6. Or to express it another way, from complaint to God, to communication with God, to confidence in God. Let's walk through these stages.
Complaint to God 13:1-2
In verses 1-2, we see the complaint to God. Four times the Psalmist addressed God with the question, "How long?" How long will you forget me? How long will you hide your face from me? How long will I hurt? How long will evil reign?
We must not soften these questions for they are full of passion and intensity and anguish. With great feeling, the psalmist declared, "God, there are some things we need to talk about."
Have you ever been there? Have you ever been perplexed by the paradoxes of life,
ever felt evil's fury in your soul, ever looked at your life and wondered where God was in all of this? Have you ever been in a place where singing, "God is so good, He's so good to me." was simply too simple a response?
If you've been there ... if you are there today ... you need to learn from the psalmist. What does he teach you?
Lesson Number One:
When life falls apart, we need to turn to God, not away from Him.
That is perhaps the most significant truth the psalmist teaches us. He didn't close God out by crawling into a hole and throwing a personal pity party for one. He didn't rail against God to others about the injustice of life. He turned to God.
Lesson Number Two:
When we turn to God, we need to be honest, not deceptive.
Many times I have stood with a family in the midst of a tragedy or a terrible loss and heard some well meaning Christian whisper, "We must not question God's will!" Of course we can question God's will! Moses did. Jeremiah did. Job did.
Paul did. Jesus did. The psalmist did. And so can we. God is big enough to accept our fury.
Our relationship with God is just that ... a relationship. And in relationships we speak honestly and openly to each other about what we feel.
The complaint of the psalmist was like an explosion. People today use the expression, "he vented." But he vented to the right person ... God ... and in the right way ... honestly.
That is the first step in dealing with the paradoxes of life: we need to lay them before God. The complaint to God then gave way, in verses 3-4, to communication with God.
Communication With God 13:3-4
Notice the change in verses 3-4. Before, the psalmist's whole attention had been fixed on the turmoil within his own heart. Now, he changed his focus to God. And he began to talk to God about the situation of his life and why God needed to do something.
What was the crisis in the psalmist's life? We don't know for sure. Some have thought the psalmist's problem was an individual who was harassing him. Others have thought that the enemy was death. Augustine thought the enemy was spiritual and referred to the devil or the sensual habits of life.
We don't know what the exact problem was. Perhaps, as many have speculated, the psalmist was deliberately non-specific so that the lessons he learned through this experience could be applied to others whose "enemy" was different from his own.
The key is not what the problem was but what the psalmist did with the problem. He went to God with the problem. He honestly expressed his feelings about the problem. Then, in his communication with God, he presented two reasons why God should do something about the problem. In the study of psalms, these reasons are referred to as "motivations."
Almost all of the lament psalms include some motivations for God to act. In this psalm, two are mentioned. In verse 3, the psalmist pled with God to intervene
so that he would not die. In verse 4, the psalmist pled with God to intervene
so that God's enemies would not be able to rejoice.
What can we learn from the psalmist? We learn that communication with God is vital to our relationship with Him.
Saul Gellerman, in his book on Motivation in the Real World, talks about the challenge of getting our message across. Gellerman suggests, the old-fashioned, no-tech, time-consuming way to do that, is "frequent, face-to-face dialogue."
The same thing is true in all our relationships with God. Venting is all right, but we need to move past venting to discussing with God and listening to God.
To communicate with God requires frequent face-to-face dialogue with Him.
After the passionate presentation of his complaint, the psalmist settled down into a dialogue with God about his problem. This communication with God then led, in verses 5-6, to confidence in God.
Confidence in God 13:5-6
Complaint gave way to praise in the final two verses of the psalm. Why? Was the problem solved? Was the pain taken away? There is no indication in the text that anything had changed in the psalmist's condition. Why then the change in his attitude? His complaint had brought him into dialogue with God, and in his dialogue with God the psalmist remembered some things he had been in danger of forgetting.
He remembered the unfailing love of God which restored his trust. He remembered the salvation of God which made him rejoice. And he remembered the goodness of God which gave him back his song.
Because the psalmist was willing to take his complaint to God, he was able to remember again who God was. And the remembrance of who God was inspired him to face life with hope.
Conclusion
Someone once said that the most memorable sentence ever spoken is the one voiced by the old spiritual: "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen ... glory hallelujah!"
We see that same juxtaposition of despair and hope, of protest and praise in our text for today.
Praise is certainly an important word in the language of faith. In fact, it would not be too much to say that for the Christian, the word praise should always be on the tips of our tongues. But sometimes, praise needs to give way to complaint as we come before God with our questions: what is happening to me, Lord? and why? where are you? and how long is this going to last? and as we say in honest protest, "God, there are things we need to talk about!"
That too is a part of the language of faith.
