How long?

This morning, Saturday, was one of those mornings when I could—believe it or not—actually “sleep in.” For me, what this usually means is I take, or rather give myself, sélah, pause, to consider the things of God. Making myself comfortable in a warm quilt and cuddling with my Jerusalem Bible, my NIV, my Greek New Testament, or my Tehillim (the Hebrew book of Psalms), I pray and thank the Lord, talking to Him as our Father in heaven. Then, declaring the Word of God as both my prayer and receiving it as His word personally addressed to me, His unworthy servant, I let myself go as long as I can, resting in His presence, learning from and feeding on Him. He is the Bread of Life. Now, that’s what I would call, real “breakfast in bed”!

Forgive me, brethren!—I do not intend to be disrespectful or unmindful of the apostolic injunction to “stand in prayer,” but there are many kinds of meetings with our Lord, some we stand for, in others we prostrate, in still others we forget all formality and simply cry out, “Help!” In all of these, God knows. He knows all about us, we can hide nothing. Yet, oddly enough for the divine Being, though we do not know all about Him, He does let us know Him in the only way we can, and from His lovers and friends He also hides nothing. “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” (John 15:15 NIV)

This morning I felt strongly drawn to pray the psalms for the 19th day according to the Hebrew usage, and from the Tehillim, in Hebrew. Of course, I also read those parts in English which I still don’t quite grasp in the original language. It amazes me how the Word of God seems to teach me and open my understanding of the Hebrew sometimes without having to resort to the facing page translation. God is good. Tov Hashém.

The psalms appointed for the 19th Day were Psalms 90 to 96 (again, Hebrew usage, which is slightly offset from Christian usage). I rejoiced when I saw which psalms they were—the psalm Moses wrote (Psalm 90) describing our brief stay on earth and all the troubles we encounter. Then, following it, a psalm that almost seems like our God’s immediate and comforting response (Psalm 91) to Moses’ plea, “Whoever sits in the refuge of the Most High—he shall dwell in the shadow of the Almighty…”

In the Tehillim, rabbinical tradition also ascribes Psalm 91 to Moses. All these psalms belong to the shabbat, the seventh-day, today. As I recited them and prayed them, pausing and rereading the choicest verses, the blessing of the sabbath rest came over me. Again and again, I thanked the Lord for His many kindnesses and mercies to me, a sinner—especially for granting me this morning of shalóm, of peace, something that is denied to many others.

When I came to Psalm 94, something changed in my mood. I read words like, “How long shall the wicked—O Hashem—how long shall the wicked exult?” (Psalm 94:3), and as I prayed I had that sense of abandonment and frustration that God’s hereditary people Israel must have felt all through their history. It’s hard not to be drawn into sympathy with them; the same things happen to us. “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.” (John 15:19 NIV)

Just as Psalm 91 came “to the rescue” of man’s complaint in Psalm 90, so it seems to me, Psalm 95 comes to bring God’s immediate and living word to the reversal of man’s plight, and the ultimate answer to his complaint in Psalm 94. “Come!—let us prostrate ourselves and bow, let us kneel before God, our Maker. For He is our God, and we can be the flock He pastures, and the sheep in His charge—even today, if we but heed His call!” (Psalm 95:6-7)

“How long?” we cry out to God from inside our various self-made miseries, as if He were not already aware of them all and dealing with us according to our capacities.

“How long?” is the answer we would hear from Him, if and when we only sought to hear His voice, as the psalmist says, “even today, if we but heed His call!”

The psalm painting and the painting of the grieving woman are by Christa Rosier, Huizen, Netherlands. View her other paintings at her website, Psalm Paintings.