Sometimes, when I read Psalms, I kind've skip over half the words. Yeah I know, I shouldn't do that. But sometimes I just can't take all the flowery lovingkindness deer panting for water praises evermore stuff. I am just not a poetically expressive person in that way. I can't do it, I sound stupid. Most of the time, if I feel it, I say it straight up, and don't try to make an analogy about butterfly wings in the meadows (for the sake of humanity). So whenever David waxes eloquent, I kind've recoil and start scanning for the point.
So most of the time, the only thing I draw from most Psalms is the feeling that I wouldn't have gotten along with David because when I imagine him, he's this crazy guy that is super emotional and expressive and flowery and wants to dance in the streets naked and I'm totally pulling a Michal (his wife at the time) and am like "uh uh David, ain't nobody got time for that".
**As an aside***Pretty sure there's something wrong with you when you are critical of the man whom God said was "a man after His own heart". I remember telling my mom in high school that I didn't like David very much (as if you can tell whether or not you would like someone based on your modern interpretation of them that is most likely very out of context) and she gasped and looked scandalized. I love getting that reaction out of my mom. She's really actually a very cute lady.
Anyways, I was reading Psalms this morning and NOT skipping over words because I have decided that if God thought David was that special, I should probably get over my initial judgement of him. So I read and read and read Psalms this morning. And truly, got many things out of it that I've missed before. But in particular, Psalm 125:1-2 stuck out to me because it said the Lord surrounds His people forever like the mountains surround Jerusalem. And I thought to myself "I wonder if this is more of David being a hipster poet or if there really are mountains around Jerusalem." So I googled it. And what do you know, there are mountains around Jerusalem. 4 mountains and 3 valleys, to be precise. And there's Jerusalem, nestled right in the middle of all that. And when I read through the website that told about the geography/history, I read this about Jerusalem:
"It was so secure from an enemy attack that Titus, the Roman General who conquered Jerusalem in 70 A.D. said that 'if it had not been for the internal dissensions, the city could never have been taken.'"
If not for internal dissensions, the city could never have been taken.
I am the city, I am surrounded, I am provided for, I am protected. And my internal dissension arises, often, from this war that goes on between a perspective grounded in God's sovereignty and a perspective grounded in my own self-centeredness.
You see, life for me is so hazy sometimes; I am vaguely aware that my obsession with feeling not good enough in every way, and feeling not accomplished, and frantically trying to win at all the games we play so I'm worth enough, is wrong. Is off. Is not the right way for things to be. Live for the glory of God, or live for the glory of me? It's incredible how easily those two are confused.
And yet, to walk in freedom is so difficult, because to accept the perspective of God one must throw off the perspective of the whole world.
And thus my internal dissent trickles through me, and makes me restless, and I wander from the safety of the mountains in search of what will never be, and what will never satisfy, and find myself far from home often. Far from the God that made a promise to hold me in His hand, but not to keep me from wandering from it. It isn't love if there isn't freedom.
The restlessness of refusing to sit still in God's hand, the restlessness of refusing to see the mountains surrounding me, the restlessness of internal dissent. It is harsh, and the fight is hard. But God does not leave, and God pursues, and little by little, the truth is setting me free.
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