“You have turned for me my mourning into dancing.” (Psalm 30:11)

One time when I took my wife to a Contra dance, I saw pleasure on her face that made her look like a queen.  Another time when I saw a gospel choir, I longed to run up on the stage and swing joyfully with them.  Sometimes there are moments where the heart wants to break forth into joy.  Fear, restraint, introverted personality often prevents us and (in spite of the opt-quoted passage about David dancing before the Lord) self-exhibitionism isn’t always appropriate.  But shed the world’s pull towards cynicism and shame and let your heart be lifted up.

“Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised.” (Psalm 48:1)

A man has a right to be an atheist if that is what he truly and honestly believes – though such a one’s honesty is certainly questioned considering the attractive prospect of having no higher, moral law to have to bother with. Nevertheless, I always thought the title of the book “God is Not Great” crossed a line of decency. Its in-your-face brazenness always gave me chills. The author, having died yesterday, is in a place where he knows the folly of his book title. If God be indeed true, he is experiencing firsthand the greatness of God’s righteousness and splendor. Or, perhaps, due to a move of grace by God Himself, the author is being astonished at the greatness of God’s mercy and forgiveness. One may wander. One may be deceived. One may stop believing. But deep down we can never shake the self-evident truth – God is great.

“My times are in Your hand.” (Psalm 31:15)

My times are in Your hand – this is what I believe. But acceptance is the proof that I believe it. When the enemy strikes, when the tasks outweighs the time, when the road of life turns the opposite way than I expected, when the world seems hurling in the wrong direction, when I forget my lunch – an open hand to a powerful God acknowledges that He never stopped being in control of His eternal plan that began before the world began and of which I am but a cog. I believe that. So I accept whatever comes my way.

“And now, Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in You.” (Psalm 39:7)

There are all kinds of higher life presumptions but they all come down to this: I do something and God is obligated to respond. Have a certain level of faith. Empty myself of sin. Travail. Fast. Claim it in prayer. Believe hard enough. Completely die to self. While these may be (or may not be) admirable disciplines, the common heresy they degenerate into is suggesting that as techniques they are a mechanism to move God to work. The truth: God is in charge. We wait expectantly.

“He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.” (Psalm 40:20)

One way to know that I am truly thankful is to ask where I would be had God not provided the thing I’m thankful for. The pilgrims knew first-hand those who did not survive the trip. They were intimately aware of starvation and disease, wild beasts and unfriendly races. They knew what it was like to live in a country where they couldn’t express what they believed. Talk to a person who once struggled with life-dominating sin and you will find a thankful person. In the not-too-distant memory they were inches away from jumping into a thankless pit destroying in the endeavor everything that was good and precious. Yet God somehow snatched them from the jaws of this destruction. Their thanksgiving flows from a thankful and aware heart.

“He will send from heaven and save me” (Psalm 57:3)

In my comfortable setting, it is difficult for me to fully appreciate the vulnerability of David. He was exposed in the wilderness, constantly on the run, and around every corner potentially was a person determined to strike him down. His pleas to God had weight. He cried for rescue from a tangible fate. The enemy of our soul would like nothing more than to push us over the edge and crush us. Internal temptations and outward luring are very real. Yet help comes from heaven.

“He is the LORD our God; His judgments are in all the earth.” (Psalm 105:7)

In the rest of the Psalm, the singer proclaims specifically the things God had done on behalf of His people Israel. But to see this pattern, he had to continually look back and reflect upon his own history. It is easy to thing that God is distant because a miracle didn’t happen today. But as we look back, we see many points in which God’s work intersected our lives. As the hymn writer says, “I trace the rainbow through the rain.”

“Who is like the LORD our God, Who is enthroned on high, who humbles Himself to behold the things that are in heaven and in the earth?” (Psalm 113:5, 6)

So which is it? Is God high and unapproachable – ready to judge unrighteousness and order the heavens? Or is he meek, lowly and attainable – ready to intervene and rescue? The shocking news is both. This is why mere personal spirituality fails us. To understand the nature of God, we have to be told and even there we don’t fully grasp.