"From You comes the theme of my praise . . ." (NIV)
There is a very real war raging both within us and without. When we forget about this war, we are in danger of losing for victory only comes to those of us who keep our eyes on the Truth.
What am I talking about? I’m talking about the difference between truth (little t) and Truth (big T).
There is a lot of talk these days about authenticity. (Back in the 60's and 70's, we talked about honesty. I think in many ways it’s the same thing.) People want to be true to who they are. They want those around them to be truly who they are. Somehow the idea of "truth" gives us a foothold upon which we think we can stand. The problem is, there is "truth" and then there is "Truth." There is the "truth" that appears to exist within this creation and then there is the Truth which is the Truth that exists because of God’s character.
The truth of this life is actually many truths because what seems true to one person may not seem true to another. It is the idea of existentialism, the idea that each of us has a perception of life that is true to us but may not be true to others. My perceptions are colored by my experiences, my beliefs, my emotions. Even the colors I see with my eyes may be slightly different than the colors you see because the number of rods and cones in our eyes may be different. Our brains may process the information differently. But all of this individuality, all of this unique perception becomes what society is now calling authenticity or being our authentic selves. Being one’s authentic self means becoming what we perceive or feel we should be.
The idea of "authentic self" has been around a while. You may have heard it in relationship with the transgender community, but it’s a psychological term that has much broader ramifications. Typically, it’s described as a contrast to the "fictional" self, "your ‘authentic’ self (who you were created to be) or your ‘fictional’ self (who the world has told you to be) (From https://www.drphil.com/advice/defining-your-authentic-self/).
The problem is we were all created to be worshipers of God. Period. That is the Truth (big T). The truth (little t) may be about how we perceive ourselves, but the Truth is what God has written in His word. And within Psalm 22 we see this battle, back and forth, between the authentic self and the True self, between the person we feel we are and the person God has created us to be.
The battle is almost always between our feelings and God’s Truth.
Feelings which feel very real are also very unreliable. They are malleable. They often change with circumstances, on a note, with a whim. They can linger when they shouldn’t and appear when least expected. Have you ever had a bad night, filled with uncomfortable dreams or perhaps even nightmares, only to wake up and feel miserable and not know why? There’s a lingering sense of impending doom simply because our hormones, which control emotions, were overreacting during the night. Rather than shake it off, put a smile on our face and go take a brisk walk to clear out the cobwebs, we often sink into a morose and coddle those feelings. We work ourselves into a depression that has no cause or focus except . . . . simply . . . our hormones. And in such a place we often stay for long periods of time. We are, in a word, defeated by drops of chemicals which live in our brains.
To which, I want to say, really?
I lived with out of control hormones for years and still, at times, struggle with them. So did, I believe, King David. When you read his psalms, you can see the war within him, the struggle that he had with feeling one way and knowing that God’s truth was actually another way. Such is Psalm 22.
David begins with this:
"My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer; by night, but I find no rest." (v. 1-2 NIV).
For those of us who have struggled with depression, anxiety and other forms of emotional distress, those words feel so true. God feels so far off. It feels like He has totally abandoned us and that the darkness has settled in around us, never to leave. The anguish of depression, of anxiety, of fear seems overwhelming, seems eternal.
But for David (and thankfully for us), the psalm doesn’t end there. There is light at the end of the tunnel. And as David goes back and forth between describing his seemingly unconquerable emotional pain and the Truth of God, we can see that clinging to God’s Truth rather than the "authentic-ness" of how we feel brings, in the end, victory.
Here is a short pattern of this psalm:
v. 1-2: Emotional outpouring
v. 3 Yet . . .
v. 3-5: The truth about God and His ability to rescue and care for us
v. 6-8: Emotional outpouring
v. 9 Yet . . .
v. 9-10 The truth about God and His love for us
v. 11-18: Emotional outpouring
v. 19 But . . .
v. 19-31: The truth about God and His absolute victory in everything
David legitimizes his feelings. He acknowledges that he hurts, that he feels alone, that he feels totally conquered and overwhelmed by his circumstances.
Yet. But.
It is the "yet’s" and the "but" that make the difference. The emotions are there. The feelings are there. They feel real, authentic, true. But they are true with a little t! They are not true with a big T. The Truth (big T) is that God is victorious, that He loves us, that He will always care for us. Here are some of the Truths in this psalm:
v. 4: He has delivered before; He will deliver again.
v. 5: Others trusted and were not put to shame for their trust.
v. 10: He has always been God to us.
v. 19: He is our strength
v. 24: He has listened to our cry for help.
v. 27: Eventually everyone and everything will bow down before Him.
v. 28: He rules over everything.
At the end of the psalm, David proclaims: "He has done it!" What has He done? Everything that we need . . . and more. God isn’t stingy with his love. He is generous, waiting for us to trust Him, waiting for us to cast off our "authentic self" in order to become our "True self," the person who trusts Him and worships Him completely. From Him comes the them of our praise and that is that God is Truth. God is the only Authentic and it is from Him that we receive who we are and what we should become.
I want to be authentic, but I only want to be the "authentic" that God wants. I want the theme of my praise to come from Him and Him alone. In order to do that, there are going to be many times when I need to ignore my emotions. I already know that my emotions aren’t reliable and often lie to me. I need to cling to the Truth of God’s Word and of His character. I need to learn that "authentic" comes from the Creator and not from drops of hormones. I need to trust God in the darkness knowing that He is the True Light and that only from Him comes true authenticity. And whether or not my emotions confirm what I know to be true, I don’t have to listen to them. I can listen to God’s Word, trust God’s Word, live God’s word and find the theme for my praise from Him.
© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.
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