READ: Psalm 145

THINK: I read about a young man who flunked out of the University of Michigan. In shame, he decided to disappear. For the next 4 years he hid in the unused attic of a nearby church. Taking great pains to conceal himself, he quietly prowled around only at night, living off food and water from the kitchen. He never left the building or spoke to a soul. No one ever suspected he was there. One day, a slight mistake gave him away. The young recluse accidentally made some noise and the police were called. He was finally discovered.

That shamed student reminds me of many believers in Christ who are overwhelmed by a sense of failure or embarrassment. They hesitate to take a stand for the Lord and may even try to conceal the fact that they are Christians. How unlike the psalmist, who publicly praised God for His greatness and goodness (Psalm 145:21). His relationship to the Lord was so wonderful that he couldn’t keep it hidden.

Do you withdraw into an “attic of silence” rather than let it be known that you are a follower of Christ? If so, confess your fearfulness to God and ask Him for the courage to tell others about the wonderful salvation He has provided.

Remember, attics are for mice, not for men! A faith worth having is a faith worth sharing.

PRAY: Ask God to give you the boldness today to powerfully live out and proclaim your faith.

READ:  Jeremiah 30-32

THINK: John Piper, a pastor in Minneapolis, has written extensively on the idea of Christian Hedonism – the notion of finding hope and joy and life amidst the brokenness of our world by totally giving ourselves over to delighting in God. And he uses God’s words in Jeremiah 32 to describe the basis for Christian Hedonism – that we can delight in God because loves and enjoys us so much. Read this selection from one of his sermons:

Two years ago Daniel Yankelovitch published a book entitled New Rules: Searching for Self-Fulfillment in a World Turned Upside Down. He argues on the basis of extensive interviews and nationwide polls that massive shifts have occurred in our culture and that the widespread search for personal self-fulfillment has created a new set of rules that govern the way we think and feel as Americans. He says, “In their extreme form the new rules simply turn the old ones on their head, and in place of the old self-denial ethic we find people who refuse to deny anything to themselves—not out of bottomless appetite, but on the strange moral principle that ‘I have a duty to myself'” (p. xviii).

He tells of a young woman in her mid-thirties who complained to her psychotherapist that she was becoming nervous and fretful because life had grown so hectic—too many big weekends, too many discos, too many late hours, too much talk, too much wine, too much pot, too much lovemaking. “Why don’t you stop?” asked the therapist mildly. The patient stared blankly for a moment, and then her face lit up, dazzled by an illumination: “You mean I really don’t have to do what I want to?” she burst out in amazement. The trademark of the new self-fulfillment seekers is that “they operate on the premise that emotional cravings are sacred objects and that it is a crime against nature to harbor an unfulfilled emotional need.”

…

Christian Hedonism teaches that the desire to be happy is God-given and should not be denied or resisted but directed to God for satisfaction. Christian Hedonism does not say that whatever you enjoy is good. It says that God has shown you what is good and doing it ought to bring you joy (Micah 6:8). And since doing the will of God ought to bring you joy, the pursuit of joy is an essential part of all moral effort. If you abandon the pursuit of joy (and thus refuse to be a Hedonist, as I use the term), you cannot fulfill the will of God.

Christian Hedonism affirms that the godliest saints of every age have discovered no contradiction in saying, on the one hand, “We are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered” (Romans 8:36), and on the other hand, “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I will say, Rejoice” (Philippians 4:4). Christian Hedonism does not join the culture of self-gratification that makes you a slave of your sinful impulses. Christian Hedonism commands that we not be conformed to this age but that we be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2) so we can delight to do the will of our Father in heaven. According to Christian Hedonism, joy in God is not optional icing on the cake of Christianity. When you think it through, joy in God is an essential part of saving faith.

…

In order for a sinner to pursue joy in God, he must be confident that God will not shut him out when he comes seeking forgiveness and fellowship. How can we be encouraged that God will treat us with mercy when we repent from our sin and come seeking joy in him? Consider this encouragement from Jeremiah 9:24, “‘I am the Lord who performs mercy and justice and righteousness in the earth, because in these things I delight’ says the Lord.” God shows mercy because he delights in it. God is not constrained to save by some formal principle or rule. He is so full of life and joy in his own glory that the climax of his pleasure is to overflow in mercy to us. The ground of our confidence in the mercy of God is that he is a perfect Christian Hedonist. He delights above all things in his divine excellence, and his happiness is so full that it expresses itself in the pleasure he has in sharing it with others.

Listen to the heartbeat of the perfect heavenly Hedonist in Jeremiah 32:40–41. Why does God do good? How does he go about the business of loving you?

Listen: “I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them; and I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.”

God does good to you because he enjoys it so much! He pursues the business of loving you with all his heart and with all his soul. The happiness of God spilling over in joyful love is the foundation and example of Christian Hedonism.

PRAY: Thank God today for doing good to you and treating you with love. Revel in his happiness, and give yourself over today to his love.

READ: Psalm 88

THINK: Yesterday I watched a movie about the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001. And then I read the transcript of the President’s speech about the prospect of war Syria. And a couple articles linked to the end of that transcript about the number of women and children who have been killed by drone strikes in the last few years. And I checked Twitter and found some tweets from students in my ministry whom I love that expressed feelings of loneliness, isolation, and brokenness. And I also got a piece of personal bad news about a close friend. And I am sitting here typing this feeling overwhelmed by the brokenness of the world.

Psalm 88 is the dark corner of the Psalter. It stands alone in its hopelessness. The pattern of the Psalms – even the most pained and broken ones – is always to end with hope and an expression of confidence in God’s ability to set things right. Always. But Psalm 88 stands out because it includes no such statement. Instead of concluding, “My God is mighty to save” it finishes with “Darkness is my closest friend.”

Darkness is my closest friend. Seems almost heretical doesn’t it? Seems like Hemen the Ezrahite, the author of Psalm 88, probably didn’t deserve his poem in the Bible. But it’s there. And if we dig into the Bible we find that Hemen wasn’t the only person in there who was beaten down and disappointed with God. Job and Moses both cried out to God in anger and frustration, prophets like Jonah and Jeremiah were so beaten down that wished for death, Elijah, Habakkuk, and many unnamed writers of the Psalms joined them in this hopeless chorus.

And though it seems strange for this incredible book about who God is to include these detailed accounts and outpourings of the soul regarding spiritual failure, the fact that they’re present demonstrates something important: the fact that sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better. Marriage counselors tell that to couples in crisis all the time. And those are not empty words. Until we really dig down and express with complete honesty the things which we’re feeling we can’t heal properly. Misunderstanding has to be exposed before understanding can flourish.

One of the greatest things about the Psalms, and this Psalm in particular, is that they aren’t some sort of theological apologetic that attempts to rationalize anger or give an abstract piece of advice about pain or explain away the problem of suffering. Instead, they are cries of the heart which vividly express emotions, passionately describe feelings, and loudly cry out in anguish. And that’s real. That’s you and me. We hurt sometimes. And sometimes we can find our own voices in these Psalms.  

The Psalms present a mosaic of spiritual therapy in process. Doubt, paranoia, giddiness, delight, hatred, joy, praise, vengefulness, betrayal – they’re all found in the psalms. From them I learn to bring to God whatever I feel about Him. I need not paper over my failures. It’s far better to bring my weaknesses to Him, who alone has the power to heal. The truth is that an honest talk with God is the first step in finding hope in our hopelessness, healing in our brokenness, and peace in our frustration.

PRAY: Maybe you’re going through something difficult today and you feel broken. Maybe you’ve been listening to the news and taking an honest look at the shattered and violent world we live in and you feel overwhelmed. Maybe today was the best day of your life. Wherever you fall along that spectrum, bring it to God honestly today. He isn’t intimidated by your true feelings. Let him know. Thank him for his presence and for the fact that he listens. Trust him to heal.