Psalm 101

I had a few things to write about and there are many things on my mind, but I came across this passage last night and was really quite taken by it.

I have been reading through the Bible since a little while after I got here in Spain, and was continuing this last night at the kitchen table/dinette set thing. Going through the Psalms alternates between an enriching and an infuriating experience, as they are so different that inevitably you cannot relate to many of them at a time. I cringe as the writer asks God to destroy his enemies in warfare, or I roll my eyes as David says "I have led a blameless life," and last night I was getting sick of reading so many calls to "sing a new song" and to "sing for joy to the Lord." God has given me a rich and good life, but right now. . .things could be better. I will not shout aloud to the Rock of my salvation. I barely have a whisper within me.

But then the 101st Psalm.

It is full of promises from beginning to end: "I will sing of your love and justice;/ to you, O lord, I will sing praise./ I will be careful to lead a blameless life. . ." to "No one who speaks falsely will stand in my presence.// Every morning I will put to silence/ all the wicked in the land." But why does the writer make all these declarations of faith and vows of service? Near the start of this fervent yet frenetic fanaticism, he asks the Lord,

"when will you come to me?"

My prayers of late have taken on a pleading and bargaining tone. "How clearly your glory would be shown if you would just [whatever], God!" "What better time to prove yourself to a heart so beaten down?" "I have been mistreated and now left by a girl claiming love. Are you, too, now absent? Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?"

I have no more answers to my questions than I did yesterday. But this poem spoke in words that my heart was struggling to form, and it seemed worth sharing. And perhaps I am reading my Bible more, praying, fasting, making promises, with the goal that God will be far no longer, just as the Psalmist hoped.

I just wish it were that easy.