We often find ourselves in the book of Psalms when the going gets rough.
But as I once again work my way through this collection of odes and shout-outs to God, I am implored as much to take joy in God as I am to take comfort.
Praise Him, praise His Holy name. Remember all that He has done, since the beginning of creation. Recall all of the healing; the wide places of relief He has brought me to. Hear that it’s okay to have private worship; that it’s a high calling to sit quietly alone before the Lord and be still in Him.
One of my best friends likes to say she is “mucking out” the house when she’s cleaning.
The Psalms are my “mucking out.”
Regardless of my interior state, or when the world, Christian or otherwise, throws me for a loop, and I’m either complacent, jaded, or just really flummoxed, I enter the salvage yard of faith in the Psalms. There I locate all the parts of God that address the worn out in me; that regenerate a stale heart and humble a cocky attitude.
At other times, when everything is fine and normal, the Psalms sweeten the hours so that the grandest blessing of all: simply feeling good and being alive, doesn’t go unnoticed.
Anita Baker sings a song in which I always hear a quiet incredulity as she extols devotion to her lover, punctuating it with the refrain:
“You bring me joy.”
The Psalms are that.
They bring me joy—in the midst of trial, but also, more regularly, on a good day, with no sorrow in sight.
They uplift to the peace and trust that goes beyond understanding.
They bring me joy.
Copyright Barb Harwood
