I’m spending the rest of the Church year in the psalms. This past week it’s been psalm 30. It’s a quick hit of a psalm, but with a pretty full spectrum of experience.
The psalmist spends the first three verses promising praise. God’s been so good to them and they are grateful. The next two verses go further, recruiting all of God’s people to praise. By verse six, the praise culminates with the confident assertion, ‘I shall never be moved.’
Such exuberance and confidence makes verse seven really stand out.
By your favor, O LORD, you made my mountain stand strong; you hid your face, I was dismayed.
In the same sentence it seems like they go from unshakable, mountaintop faith…to feeling dismay at God’s inattention. In the next couple verses they become so distraught that we listen in as the psalmist is pleading for their life!
From mountain tops to the pits.
Rock solid faith to life threatening dismay.
Uplifting prosperity to destabilizing lack.
I suppose it’s nice to know that Scripture includes such fickle people as authors. Yet, it feels like a small comfort. I’d much rather the Scriptures suggest that it’s possible to go from one mountaintop in life to the next. I’d rather not go through pits, dismay and lack. I’m not sure why God allows those things, but I wish God wouldn’t. Of course, my life has these same swings. In friendship, money, career even family I have experienced mountaintops of aligned good, only to trip headlong into disorienting bad.
Of course, verse seven is not the end of the psalm. By the end, they are praising again.
You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever!
The only sense I can make of this pendulum is that the goodness of God is so comprehensive that it outweighs the dismay. The provision outweighs the lack. Unpredictable though it may be, it is the goodness of God that takes root in God’s people and calls us all back. It’s calling me back.