Psalm 141: Refuse

 

Where do you need God to most work in your life today? I have friends and family members who are sick, who need jobs, who are struggling in their marriages and their family members. I have people close to me who felt they did all that God had called them to do, but nothing has seemed to work out the way they expected. I know a lot of people that are praying for a miracle. But I must admit, I’m often concerned that we may be focused on what we need God to do for us while He’s focused on what He desires to do in us. We seem to want God to change our lives while He’s determined to change our hearts. We are working to feel secure while God’s working to uncover all our insecurities, not to harm us with them, but to free us from them. Our circumstances don’t create issues they are what God uses to reveal them, but as we say often, God only exposes what He desires to heal. We can be sure that God is working in our lives, but we must understand, that He’s using our lives to work in our hearts. 

Psalm 141 begins with an urgent cry for help. David cried out, “hasten to me”, listen to me, in many ways, He was pleading with God, “Answer me!” The trouble he was dealing with was the same as it had been in Psalm 140, wicked men that were against him, enemies that were slandering him, trouble that seemed to be all around him. But while Psalm 140 was a prayer that God would deal with his enemies, Psalm 141 became a prayer that God would deal with him. 

David prayed, “Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips! Do not let my heart incline to any evil, to busy myself with wicked deeds in company with men who work iniquity, and let me not eat of their delicacies!” Somewhere in the midst of David praying, “Get them, judge them, punish them”, he started asking God, “Search me”. When was the last time we asked God to examine our responses rather than change our circumstances? How often do we ask God to dive into our fear, anxiety, discontent and impatience rather than just keeping us from it? 

Do we realize that those emotions are in us, not swirling around us? Unemployment doesn’t cause anxiety, it exposes it. Sickness doesn’t create the fear of death, it uncovers it. Loneliness doesn’t cause discontentment it shines a light on it. Just as God let Israel become hungry so that He could teach them that “man does not live on bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of God”, He creates tension, leads us into lonely places, even allows what we would not have ever desired or expected, to free us from our invisible bonds and to teach us that He is always enough. 

Many of us love the imagery of Psalm 23, especially verse 2, “He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.” This is not an invitation to nap, it’s submission to God’s leadership. David wrote, “He makes me lie down”. When I don’t think I need to rest, He forces me to stop. When I want to keep going, He closes the door. When I’m trying to stay busy, He makes me deal with my heart. Isn’t this exactly what happened with Peter? At the Passover Meal before Jesus’ arrest, Peter argued with Jesus, wanting to know why he couldn’t go with Him where He was going. Peter said, adamantly, “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.” (Luke 22:33) It was then that Jesus told Peter that he would deny Him three times before morning. Matthew’s account says that Peter responded, “Even if I must die with you, I will never deny you!” Within hours, when Jesus was arrested, Peter pulled out his sword and began to fight for Jesus, but Jesus rebuked him and told him to put his sword away. He made Peter lie down. Peter followed as best he could, he watched as closely as he was able, and he denied Jesus three times. He was willing to fight, but he struggled to watch. I believe he was even willing to die fighting for Jesus, but if he wasn’t allowed to fight, he didn’t know what to do with his heart when he wasn’t in control of the narrative, when the circumstances didn’t match his expectations. That’s what it looks like to be made to lie down in green pastures, it’s not a rest from the work, it’s a release of our control, it’s an examination of our hearts. 

And so, here’s where David’s prayer that God would set a guard over his mouth and protect his heart from evil led him, this bold declaration, “Let a righteous man strike me—it is a kindness; let him rebuke me—it is oil for my head; let my head not refuse it.” David was saying, “Don’t just search me, correct me. Don’t just examine me, rebuke me. Don’t just lead me, change me.” How open are we to correction and rebuke? I’m not just talking about admitting that we are wrong but acknowledging that we need to be changed. Many of us have gotten so used to living with and in certain emotions that we’ve built partnerships with them. We walk on eggshells with ourselves, we exhaust ourselves trying to order our lives in ways that will protect us from feelings that we don’t know how to deal with or become free from. If I can be blunt, the problem is that we want the circumstances that raise the feelings to be changed, when God Himself oversees the circumstances because He wants to deal with the issues behind our feelings.

David wrote, “let my head not refuse it”. This is where many of us are today. We are in places of correction and rebuke. Let me take a quick aside here, correction and rebuke are not about being wrong, they are about being loved. God only disciplines those He loves (Hebrews 12:6) and the wounds of a friend can be trusted (Proverbs 27:6). God’s work is always about His character toward us. He corrects from love for freedom. He rebukes from love for joy. He works for us so that He can work in us. Our steps are being ordered so that our hearts cannot just be changed but can be full. What if the only thing standing between freedom, wholeness, satisfaction and joy is not the circumstance we are in, but our stubbornness toward change? Don’t let your head refuse God’s love, don’t give in to your claustrophobia along the narrow way, don’t try to distract from your discomfort with busyness, don’t believe that ministry will cover your shame or that the next relationship will fill your heart. Don’t think that the answer to your prayer will change your life, if your heart doesn’t change, it will only change your location, but before long, the lack you felt before will be the lack you feel again, because it’s not coming from around you, it’s living within you. 

No matter what we face the work that God is doing is in our hearts. Today I’m praying for jobs and for healing, for restoration and direction, but in and through it all, I’m praying that God will change our hearts, that He’ll expose everything in us that is not from Him. I’m praying that no matter what we are asking for, we will know that He’s given us Himself (Luke 11:13) and that we will believe that having Him is having everything we need.