Psalm 44: But

I get uncomfortable when I read or hear something that I know isn’t true. I don’t like accusations about people I love and really struggle listening to opinions that don’t match my experience. Psalm 44 is a struggle for me because when I read it, I want to defend God, but today I’m trying to quell my discomfort and hear what Israel was saying. I’m trying to remember that God can and will defend Himself, it’s not my job to silence the voice of the hurting, but to listen; to hear not only their complaints but God’s heart, and to offer the comfort of the truth, even when it doesn’t answer their questions or seem to change their situations.

Psalm 44 begins like a congregational song of praise. It’s clearly a corporate statement, the nation of Israel singing about the provision of God. They hearken back to God’s great deliverance of bringing their fathers out of slavery in Egypt and into victory in the Promised Land. They sing that they have heard, they have been told, which is a confession that they believe. They make a statement of faith, “You are my King . . . In God we have boasted continually and we will give thanks to your name forever.” And then comes the word that changes the tone of the song, Michael Wilcock wrote that it “wrenches the psalm violently”, “But . . .”

The hard truth that Israel is facing, questioning and even singing about in Psalm 44 is that they know what God has done in the past, but it doesn’t seem to match what He’s doing right now. They sing, “But you have rejected us . . .” The trouble we have with testimonies is we tend to think that what God’s done before that He’s bound to do it again, that His unchanging nature somehow filters over into His methods and actions. Testimonies are supposed to teach us to trust God’s character not to believe for a specific or desired outcome. The Scriptures are not simply a record of what God does; they are a revelation of who God is. Isaiah 55 tells us so clearly that God’s ways and His thoughts are higher than ours, Paul taught that we see through a glass darkly which means we won’t fully understand, he even wrote that we only prophesy in part. What God has done is a reminder of His love not a guarantee of an outcome.

I read Israel’s words and I cringe a little, it makes me uncomfortable to hear them sing that God had rejected them. I want to correct them, even rebuke them, I want to convince them to change the lyrics to their song, to look up, to move on. The last thing I want to do is listen to something that I think is false, but what if my task is not to make them sing a new song, but to hear their hearts even if I don’t agree with their words? Psalm 44 sounds a lot like the book of Job. Israel says they have searched their hearts and they have been faithful. They are convinced that they have not sinned in a way that could have created this kind of consequence or judgment. They have questioned themselves and found no wrongdoing and so now they have turned their attention to questioning God. Once again, that makes me uncomfortable, but rather than me thinking about Israel’s words, I want to consider my discomfort. What is it that I’m uncomfortable with? Why do I need to make sure that the experience of others fits within my understanding? Am I protecting God or am I protecting myself? Why does hearing someone’s hurt instantly turn me into one of Job’s friends where I need to measure their words, correct their theology or distance myself just in case God sends the lightning of His judgment?

I think the entire issue is found in that one small word that often changes everything, “but”. Most of us live in fear of when we might face the “but” of our own lives. We know what we know until it gets tested. We are sure of God’s goodness until our lives go bad. We are sure God loves us until we face rejection. We are convinced of how God moves until we can’t seem to measure His movement. We say things like “He did it before He’ll do it again”, but what if He doesn’t? I’m not asking as if that is a fear we need to move away from, I’m asking that as a legitimate question. What if what He did before is not at all what He desires to do now? What if the old things need to pass away? What if a door needs to close before a new one can open? What is most valuable is not to know what God does but to know who God is. If God is love, then He is loving us when enemies are defeated and when we are surrounded. If God is good, then He’s good when water bursts out of a rock and when we are living in a dry and thirsty land. If God is with us, then we can trust His presence in newness of life and the valley of the shadow of death. I believe this, we can’t know God’s character until we’ve seen it in our best and our worst. Leadership that comforts but never corrects becomes corrupt. Love that encourages but never exposes is on the surface. A relationship that protects from difficulty rather than enduring through it will never grow roots. We need both sides of the coin, to truly know God’s character we have to experience Him in our greatest joy and our deepest pain.

Israel sang a song that was from their hearts in their deepest hurt. The words they sang were real even if they were not completely true. We know God didn’t reject them, but they had to learn it for themselves, they had to see Him in their hurt so that they could trust Him their hearts. Most of us are the same. Throughout Scripture we see people that see God’s hand in their greatest and worst moments, what they learned was not how God worked or what God always did, but who God was at all times and in all things. I’d like to encourage us to do two things today, sing your song to God in plenty and in lack, when you feel embraced and when you feel rejected, when you see His hand and when we feel far from His face. Sing your song, God will hear, and He will move our hearts so that we can trust His love. The second thing might be a bit more difficult, listen to the songs of the people who surround you. The hurting don’t need to be corrected, they need to be loved, they need to be heard, they need to see in others what they have become blinded to in themselves, that God is near, that God is good and that the God who always listens also always answers. If we will do the loving, God will do the correcting and the outcome will be healing. That small word “but” changes our lives, it changes our songs, but it never changes God. No matter what He does, He always is, and what He is, is always what we need.