The Storm of "If" and the Stream of Faith
From Psalm 46 – 1 God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. 2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, 3 though its water roaring from and the mountains quake with their surging. 4 there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. 5 God is within her, she will not fail; God will help her at break of day.
Tim Keller in Songs of Jesus ascribes to the author in Psalm 74 that he begins to process disaster in prayer.
That same capacity is evident in the opening of Psalm 46. This perspective is stubbornly evident even when worry presents disasters which are hypothetical to the point of hyperbole. Though Psalm 46:1 is declarative in its theology, that God IS our refuge, good theology doesn't become a fig leaf to cover the naked vulnerability of this author's thought life.
My declaration of God's pervasive sovereignty will be true, he holds steady, even if the ground on which I was standing when I said it cracks up. It will be true even if the mountains which can either inspire my idolatry or my worship of the true God, even if they are uprooted.
If my if's run wild and God repeats a flood on a tectonic scale that surpasses the flood Noah saw, even then God is in control. He is so calmly and completely in control that he isn't in the bunker of a command center.
In the day of the biggest disasters I can imagine, He is our ever-present help. Even potential disasters that will be the stuff of today's summer blockbusters, even those deepen the Psalmist's awe and resolve. Strangely, the stupefying steadies him.
Only from such a deep-rooted faith in a God worthy of that faith can we begin to understand the scene shift between the first three verses of Psalm 46 and the second declaration in the fourth verse. The thought experiment is over. Speculation has had its place. He puts the what if's back in the box. There IS a river whose streams make GLAD the city of God.
The present tense of Psalm 46:4 defies sweeping it off into our wishful eschatology that would excuse perpetual worry in the here and now. He knows there is a river of gladness the believer can draw from which is just as real as the physical river that might flood any day.
Foreshadowing duality that Paul will draw from in Ephesians, whatever happens to the body, and the emotions at which its glands pull, by faith the believer already IS present with the Lord. Compared with that palpable presence, our worries are phantoms. Controlling our thoughts, said Spurgeon in All of Grace, is like trying to fight off bees with a sword. Stacked against our wilting resolve, worry is sure to win. Compared to the Psalm 46:4 river of gladness that IS, and still is when we leak and need to draw from it again, worry holds no weight.
The Psalmist keeps the same water imagery to maintain continuity for comparison. In my speculations, he admits, floods happen that can shake mountains. But God's Presence with me that makes me glad, that Presence can use the same elements for refreshment and reassurance.
Time in worship and prayer with a palpable sense of God's immediacy, it is the stream compared to the raging flood. It is the terrifying possibilities of what God COULD permit tamed to what He will allow at any one time in the life of the believer.
Whereas it is the devil's business, says CS Lewis in The Screwtape Letters, to keep us worried about multiple possibilities that cannot all come to pass, the thoughts faith's dwells on our filtered through God's shepherding character.
Watch the impact of such a discipline in Isaiah 40. The 10th verse proclaims the bigness of God's scope and capacity, "Behold, the Lord God shall come with a strong hand, and His arm shall rule for Him. Behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him. Gulp.
For those hoping at best not to be noticed in such a bold assertion of His sovereignty, verse 11 narrows to the gurgle of a stream. "He will feed His flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and gently lead those who are young.
And then the Holy Spirit puts the waters, those flooding possibilities in perspective for us in verse 12. God is the one, rejoices Isaiah in relief, Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand. In fact, reflects Isaiah, even the Heavens that are physically the source of the waters, they are subject to God's pre-planned measurement. Just as the author of Psalm 46 is confident that daybreak will dispel the gloomiest introspection, Isaiah knows that God controls the skies to do His work in His time.
Tim Keller in Songs of Jesus ascribes to the author in Psalm 74 that he begins to process disaster in prayer.
That same capacity is evident in the opening of Psalm 46. This perspective is stubbornly evident even when worry presents disasters which are hypothetical to the point of hyperbole. Though Psalm 46:1 is declarative in its theology, that God IS our refuge, good theology doesn't become a fig leaf to cover the naked vulnerability of this author's thought life.
My declaration of God's pervasive sovereignty will be true, he holds steady, even if the ground on which I was standing when I said it cracks up. It will be true even if the mountains which can either inspire my idolatry or my worship of the true God, even if they are uprooted.
If my if's run wild and God repeats a flood on a tectonic scale that surpasses the flood Noah saw, even then God is in control. He is so calmly and completely in control that he isn't in the bunker of a command center.
In the day of the biggest disasters I can imagine, He is our ever-present help. Even potential disasters that will be the stuff of today's summer blockbusters, even those deepen the Psalmist's awe and resolve. Strangely, the stupefying steadies him.
Only from such a deep-rooted faith in a God worthy of that faith can we begin to understand the scene shift between the first three verses of Psalm 46 and the second declaration in the fourth verse. The thought experiment is over. Speculation has had its place. He puts the what if's back in the box. There IS a river whose streams make GLAD the city of God.
The present tense of Psalm 46:4 defies sweeping it off into our wishful eschatology that would excuse perpetual worry in the here and now. He knows there is a river of gladness the believer can draw from which is just as real as the physical river that might flood any day.
Foreshadowing duality that Paul will draw from in Ephesians, whatever happens to the body, and the emotions at which its glands pull, by faith the believer already IS present with the Lord. Compared with that palpable presence, our worries are phantoms. Controlling our thoughts, said Spurgeon in All of Grace, is like trying to fight off bees with a sword. Stacked against our wilting resolve, worry is sure to win. Compared to the Psalm 46:4 river of gladness that IS, and still is when we leak and need to draw from it again, worry holds no weight.
The Psalmist keeps the same water imagery to maintain continuity for comparison. In my speculations, he admits, floods happen that can shake mountains. But God's Presence with me that makes me glad, that Presence can use the same elements for refreshment and reassurance.
Time in worship and prayer with a palpable sense of God's immediacy, it is the stream compared to the raging flood. It is the terrifying possibilities of what God COULD permit tamed to what He will allow at any one time in the life of the believer.
Whereas it is the devil's business, says CS Lewis in The Screwtape Letters, to keep us worried about multiple possibilities that cannot all come to pass, the thoughts faith's dwells on our filtered through God's shepherding character.
Watch the impact of such a discipline in Isaiah 40. The 10th verse proclaims the bigness of God's scope and capacity, "Behold, the Lord God shall come with a strong hand, and His arm shall rule for Him. Behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him. Gulp.
For those hoping at best not to be noticed in such a bold assertion of His sovereignty, verse 11 narrows to the gurgle of a stream. "He will feed His flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and gently lead those who are young.
And then the Holy Spirit puts the waters, those flooding possibilities in perspective for us in verse 12. God is the one, rejoices Isaiah in relief, Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand. In fact, reflects Isaiah, even the Heavens that are physically the source of the waters, they are subject to God's pre-planned measurement. Just as the author of Psalm 46 is confident that daybreak will dispel the gloomiest introspection, Isaiah knows that God controls the skies to do His work in His time.
Walls either go up or come tumbling down at "it's all about Him, not all about you". :)
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