HoHum:
Back in the 60’s there was a singer named Lesley Gore who recorded, “It’s My Party.” The lyrics were written by Seymour Gottlieb, a freelance songwriter. The song lyrically portrays the discomfort of a teenage girl at her birthday party when her boyfriend Johnny disappears, only to return in the company of Judy, another girl, who is “wearing his ring,” to indicate he has replaced the birthday girl as his love interest. Now that is something to cry about. Sing the chorus. The inspiration for the song relates to Gottlieb’s daughter Judy’s “Sweet 16” party and she was not crying over a boyfriend. She was crying over the prospect of her grandparents being invited to the party. Now that is cringe worthy, Judy was having a pity party over what I think is minor.
WBTU:
Pity is one of the most unselfish emotions available to human beings; having a pity party is the most contemptible. Pity (sympathy) is the capacity to enter into the pain of another to do something about it; having a pity party is an incapacity, a crippling emotional disease that distorts our perception of reality. Pity discovers the need in others for love and healing and then fashions speech and action that brings strength; having a pity party reduces the universe to a festering wound that is displayed for all to see, designed to evoke pity from others. The attractiveness of pity and the ugliness of a pity party are compelling. We live in a society in which having a pity party is much more common than showing pity to others. Anna Clark said, “People who’ve had it easy but still whine about ‘poor me’ are really irritating. Like celebrities who complain about how ‘hard’ it is to be rich and famous and how they ‘wish they had a normal life’ annoy me.” In our day we find the celebrity autobiography that gives evidence that we may be the most self pitying populace in all of human history. Feeling sorry for oneself has been developed into an art form. The pity party always deals with facts; that man does have a better car than I do; that woman does have a more considerate husband that I do; that person does have a better digestive system than I do; that less competent worker got a better promotion than I did. These facts are indisputable (or so we think). This poison is secreted from the comparisons. I find out a truth about myself and compare it to what I know of someone else. This knowledge could become a stimulus for growth and an incentive to bless someone else. More often, though, it provokes envy. “Envy rots the bones.” Proverbs 14:30, NIV.
The antidote to the pity party, which is often a party of one, is found in Psalm 77.
Thesis: Psalm 77 invites us to look, learn and love
For instances:
Look (Vs. 1-10)
Let’s really look at the facts. Yes, we did pray but the Lord failed to answer our prayers as we would like. Vs. 1 We did seek out the Lord (vs. 2a). We did pray during the night (vs. 2b). We sought comfort but our soul refused to be comforted (vs. 2c). What? Why refuse comfort? This refusal shows that this is a pity party. Using our misery to extract pity from others. We must be noticed because we hurt. My troubles, God’s apparent lack of response to my many cries, demands that I be noticed. This person remembered God but when they remembered how God answered them they groaned (vs. 3a). Their spirit grew faint because of their sufferings (vs. 3b). Their troubles leave no time for sleep (vs. 4). Saying that their insomnia is God’s fault. Self pity, the pity party, grovels in nostalgia, look at vs. 5 and beginning of vs. 6. The grass was greener 50 years ago. I loved my songs, my pleasures, and my abilities back then. Almost everybody agrees that things were better in the old days- but no 2 people agree on when the old days were. Russell Baker calls their bluff: “Despite universal yearning for the old days- it is also true that 99 people out of 100 who prefer the old days wouldn’t dream of going back unless they could take their car with them.” The pity party, an inept historian, considers and remembers the past only to feed the injustice of the moment and to avoid doing anything about it.
The pity party is focused inward. Read rest of vs. 6. There is a healthy self awareness but self awareness requires discipline and guidance from others. Notice what the pity party believes about God- take a long look at this one. Read the 6 questions vs. 7-9. Let’s reform these questions into statements: 1) The Lord rejects forever and will never show his favor again 2) The Lord’s unfailing love has vanished forever 3) The Lord’s promises fail all the time 4) God forgets to be merciful 5) God, in his anger, withholds compassion. A rejecting God, a tired God, a stingy God, a forgetful God, an angry God. Can anyone with a first grade knowledge of the God revealed in Scripture support such statements? No!!! Vs. 10 is difficult to translate and reflect the true meaning. Good News Translation says this, “Then I said, What hurts me most is this- that God is no longer powerful.” The Message Bible by Eugene Peterson says here, “Just my luck, I said. The High God goes out of business just the moment I need him.” Who says that God is loving, compassionate, and kind? If he was at one time, he is no longer because I am the evidence. My condition, as everyone can see, is proof that God is not what he is reported to be; otherwise, why would I be so miserable? My grief has this basis: God doesn’t love me
Learn Vs. 11-15
If this is what we understand about God then we need to listen to the wisdom of Yoda, “You must unlearn what you have learned.” We need to go back to what the Bible says. Notice the shift in vs. 11-12. How did this come about? The Psalmist is continuing in prayer and there is a pivot here where the Psalmist takes his eyes off of himself and places them on Scripture. The change comes not when we learn to meditate (as in musing vs. 3 and 6- one definition of musing is to wallow in our worries) but when we learn on whom to meditate. No lack of meditation up to this point- the meditation is musing, in other words unfocused, or nostalgic or self indulgent. It is meditation on the self. But the moment the meditation shifts from “me, and I” to “you and your” the whole tenor of the Psalm changes (me, my and I in vs. 1-12; you and your in vs. 13-20). Prayer can start with our situation but it needs to go to God, the one whom we are addressing. Vs. 13 says that God is holy. One way to describe God’s holiness is that God is perfect in all of his ways. We need to learn, be immersed, in God’s creation, God’s revelation, and God’s redemption. Read. vs. 14-15. “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.” Psalms 119:71. Very little is learned without affliction. Chip Brogden- Just as there is no victory without a fight, no crown without a cross, so there is no testimony without a test.
Learned there is no testimony without a test from a lady who I viisted in hospital- on drugs but the Lord brought her out. Quite a testimony and I was priviledged to hear it
““Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”” Matthew 11:28-30, NIV.
“with a mighty hand and outstretched arm; His love endures for ever.” Psalms 136:12, NIV.
Love vs. 16-20
Unsure what is being talked about in vs. 16-18 but vs. 19 makes it obvious. This is talking about the exodus. When people asked the Israelites how they knew that God loved them, what would they have said? They would have talked about the exodus and the greatest miracle from the exodus was the parting of the Red Sea. “to him who divided the Red Sea asunder His love endures for ever. and brought Israel through the midst of it, His love endures for ever. but swept Pharaoh and his army into the Red Sea; His love endures for ever.” Psalms 136:13-15, NIV. This was a time when the natural and the supernatural, the earth and the heavens, were orchestrated in a single act of redemption. Everyone knows what happened but how it happened is a wonder. “Your footprints were not seen.” Footprints made in deep waters leave no trace. Even today there is little tangible, visible proof that it happened but it happened.
When people ask us how do we know that God loves us, we talk about Jesus. “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” 1 John 4:10, NIV. More evidence of this than the Red Sea but it is still by faith. If that isn’t love by Dottie Rambo- He left the splendor of heaven, knowing his destiny, was the lonely hill of Golgotha, there to lay down his life for me. If that isn’t love, the ocean is dry, there’s no stars in the sky, and the sparrow can’t fly. If that isn’t love, then heaven’s a myth, there’s no feeling like this, if that isn’t love
So what?
Notice the first use of hand in this Psalm: “In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; In the night my hand was stretched out without weariness; My soul refused to be comforted.” Psalms 77:2, NAS95. This use of hand is in the midst of the pity party. We might expect that God will grasp this hand or hold this hand by the last verse but no.
The final use of hand here is vs. 20. The hand stretched out in self pity is answered by the hands of Moses and Aaron. Their hands do not protect people from trouble but train them in the midst of it. They do not hold the hands of the people, sympathizing with them over their loss of home and security in Egypt. They take their hands and lead them into the harsh desert. The redemption has already been accomplished and now the life of faith must be learned. Unlearn what you have learned. “It took one day to get the Hebrews out of Egypt; it took 40 years to get Egypt out of the Hebrews.” I was saved at age 13 but was not escorted into the Promised Land then, I had to learn through the Christian life how to overcome Egypt. 40 years in the desert
Often prayer begins in a pity party. But we must not be afraid of ending up some place quite different from where we start. We might start with “I remembered you, O God, and I groaned’ but we finish with “Your ways, O God, are holy. What god is so great as our God?”
