Psalm 4: Ponder

My favorite line of the biblical Christmas narrative is found in Luke 2:19, “But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” I find the picture a tremendous personal challenge. The shepherds had come and found Mary, Joseph and the newborn Messiah. They told them everything that the angel had told them, probably told them about the heavenly host and the song that they sang. The shepherds had worshipped Mary’s child. She had delivered him only hours earlier, her body was still exhausted, her future was unknown, the situation and circumstances were not at all how she had pictured giving birth to her first child, but as the shepherds left, rather than letting her mind race, she allowed everything she had experienced and heard to settle into her heart and rather than talk about it or question what was next, she simply pondered.

I don’t ponder enough. I think a lot, I have a tendency to live inside my head if I don’t actively fight the urge. I mull things over, consider scenarios and question how the last thing should fit with the next thing. My response to the events of my life, even to the directives of God is often more like solving a puzzle than following a leader. I often feel like it’s my job, it’s God’s desire for me to figure it out or decipher the riddle. I treat the past, the present and the future like some sort of cosmic Rubik’s Cube that I need to align in just the right way so that I can finally hold it up and show everyone watching that I unraveled the mystery. If you have any of those tendencies then I don’t have to tell you that it’s exhausting, but even more it’s unfulfilling. When the events of life are clues on a treasure map there is no time to let them sink into our hearts and there is no value in ever stopping to ponder.

We are called to follow Jesus, not figure out the plan. We are invited to trust Him, not impress Him. We were created to depend upon Him for help, not to learn how to help ourselves. Mary modeled something that I’m trying to learn, she was one who pondered. She didn’t believe every circumstance of life was something to be figured out, she decided to let them sink in. When the angel Gabriel appeared to her, she didn’t understand, how could she? She was a virgin and she was going to have a child? Not just any child, but a child that would be called the Son of God? She didn’t argue, she didn’t fight, she didn’t take it upon herself to figure it out or to make it happen, she simply said, “I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” She let the words and promises stand, they were being given to her, but they didn’t belong to her and she didn’t have to take responsibility for them. Where I struggle, she pondered. Where I worry, she treasured. Where I think I’m supposed to create an outcome, she understood she was simply called to carry a promise. All God asked her to do was all He is asking me to do, believe what He said and watch while He works.

In Psalm 4, David was once again calling out to God from the midst of betrayal, rejection and slander. He began by asking God to respond to his prayers. David then reminded himself that in times past, in seasons of brokenness and rejection, in times not unlike his current state, God had given him relief. Often, remembering how God has worked in the past gives us the courage to trust Him in the present. David had been betrayed before, he had been in danger before, he had been surrounded by threats and the bloodthirsty before and when he was, God had given him relief. Often our struggle is not that we’ve forgotten what God has done for us in the past, it’s that we had thought that we would not ever be in danger again. Once an enemy is removed, we expect no more enemies, once freedom is won, we anticipate no more bondage, once a corner is turned, we plan for straight lines and open space, once our hearts are healed, we believe for no more pain. We rejoice in what God has done and then we move on, but often, we move before we’ve pondered, we try to spread the word before we’ve allowed the word to settle in.

In verse 4, David writes, “Be angry, and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent.” There’s that word again. It’s not the same word in the original languages, of course, we are working with Hebrew and Greek and then translations into English, but while the language isn’t the same, I believe the thought is. The word David used here is translated by some as “meditate”, others as “commune with your heart” or “search your heart”. In all these cases the idea is to slow down, even to be still, to not speak or act quickly, to let what’s being done now to sit down beside what’s been done before so that we can see it’s not our job to fit them together, but rather, it’s our opportunity to see how God makes things fit. Timothy Keller writes that the Greek word translated as “pondered” in Luke 2:19 “means to put in context, to connect, to think something out.” That’s exactly what David is writing here. Start with what you know to be true about God, go to His character, remember His heart, lean in to His fabric and then, take whatever you have experienced and whatever you are experiencing and put them in the context of who God is, what God does and what God’s Word promises that He will do. Life comes at us fast. David went from being Israel’s most popular soldier to Saul’s most hated enemy. He went from the greatest King on the earth to running in exile from his son. Mary went from being an engaged teenager to being pregnant with the Messiah. What did they do? They pondered, they trusted God, they sat still and let the peace of God’s order over take their feelings of life being out of their own control. I need to learn how to ponder, maybe you do too.