Everything That's On My Mind

Saturday, May 06, 2006

“But you see, David was the first blues singer. As well as praising, he was there shouting at God—you know: ‘Where are you when we need you?’…‘We’re surrounded’…‘Your people are starving’…‘Are you deaf?’ That type of thing. He’d be wailing, this militant mind, this poet musician with enough faith to believe he had a deal with God…believed it enough to get angry when it looked like He wasn’t coming through.”

~Bono

I've loved the blues for a long time. Even before I knew what the blues was, I loved the blues. There's something cathartic about the blues. It's raw, it's passionate, it's not quite under control, it's a little bit threatening. Most of all, I think I love the blues because it's honest. There are no pretensions, it is what it is...like it or not.

The Psalms are like that. Some of them are very raw and dangerous. We get a little uncomfortable when David starts calling down judgment from heaven on his enemies. It doesn't sound very "Christian" to call down fire upon the heads of your enemy. It's even more difficult when David questions God, wonders where He has gone.

All this makes me think about the definition of faith. Growing up, I got the impression that "having faith" excluded such thoughts. People of faith were perpetually happy people, everything was always great. Perpetual smiles and "isn't God good?" always on their lips. Now I'm not so sure. If David truly was a "man after God's own heart", then must we at least wonder if the "whining" Psalms are appropriate for the life of faith as well? Maybe you can be a person of faith and still feel depressed every now and then. Maybe Bono has a point. Maybe getting a little upset every now and then is a sign that we really do believe in God's promises. We're just a little impatient waiting for them to come to pass.

Ah, patience, now there's the rub.

So now I'm thinking that a little blues every now and then is a good thing. The key is to be more like David. No matter how bitter his complaint, he rarely closed a Psalm without a reminder of God's goodness and faithfulness, and an exhortation to patience. So we can sing the blues, as long as we don't give up hope. After all, suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character...hope. I think I may need to get that tattooed on my thick skin someday.

Faith

Saturday, May 06, 2006 - 09:01 PM Eastern Daylight Time

Comments [0]

Name
E-mail	(will show your gravatar icon)
Home page

	Remember Me
Comment (Some html is allowed: `a@href@title, b, blockquote@cite, em, i, strike, strong, sub, sup, u`) where the @ means "attribute." For example, you can use <a href="" title=""> or <blockquote cite="Scott">.
Enter the code shown (prevents robots):
Live Comment Preview

On this page...

May 2006

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

Everything That's On My Mind

On this page...

Categories