A walk through the darkest valley.
Hi folks. So glad to be here reading Psalm 21, 22 and 23 together with you all. God has so much for us in these psalms!
Psalm 21 is a “royal psalm.” This was originally a prayer of thanksgiving for the victories of the king of Israel and later for the anticipated victories of the coming Messiah. It is also important to see that the king experiences these blessings and victories from God and because of trust in God. We would do well to read these verses as if we were the king. From Psalm 21:1, 5 and 7, “In your strength I rejoice, O Lord…. My glory is great through your help, O Lord…. (Yup, you get some glory from God but don’t let it go to your head)…. For I trust in you, Lord, through your steadfast love I shall not be moved.”
Psalm 21:8-12 seems rather violent to our ears as it should. When the king of Israel fully trusted in God, God gave him success in battle against enemies who sought to keep the people of Israel from God’s ultimate mission of extending his blessings of peace and justice to the world. We can pray these words to ask God to give Jesus victory over enemies, both human and spiritual, who seek to keep the people of God from God’s ultimate mission of extending his blessings of peace and justice to the world. We can be honest with God about what we might hope happens to our enemies but it is God and God alone who fights the battle in this psalm. No allowance for violence on our part.
Jesus cries out in a loud voice from the cross in Mark 15:34, “’Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ (which means ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’)” In Psalm 22, you will see other references to the death of Jesus in this psalm. Yet, in this psalm, we also see that God identifies with our own suffering, giving us words to express our most painful and even deadly afflictions. This psalm encourages us to be brutally honest with God about our sufferings and then to be equally as audacious about our trust in God despite what we are experiencing. This is the essence of a mature faith we know from Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” These verses sound extreme because our suffering is often unbearable. The faith of the psalmist is equally as extreme because God faithfulness to you, despite what you may be experiencing, is steadfast. The psalmist extols in Psalm 22:24, “For he [God] has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; he [God] has not hidden his face from him [you and me] but has listened to his [your and my] cry for help.”
If you can come to pray like this, well, then you can rest in the words of Psalm 23. You can thank God from Psalm 23:4, that “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me….” Take care, though, to allow God to mold and shape your character and faith, often through tough situations, which is what the psalmist means by, “your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” The great comfort comes as our trust in God grows.
AMEN for Now,
