Since Owen was born almost a month ago, life has been, well… a little different. With Owen around, as I told a friend recently, there are more exclamation points in my life. I’ve had a strict ration of five exclamation points per day prior to Owen, and with The Boy around (as we call him), I’ve moved to a generous five per second ration. My life’s mission statement of “Make Michelle laugh” has now been amended to have “and Owen too” on it.
(Look, I know what you’re thinking. Actually, the sleep hasn’t been that bad – he’s a great sleeper! I use a modified straight jacket approach like Abraham Piper, and BAM! 6 hour stretches at night. But I won’t say it too loud… but I’m not superstitious, just kinda-stitious.)
Even still, with Owen around life has demanded more energy, and I’ve felt a fog and exhaustion in my soul. I don’t think it’s a bad exhaustion, just the adjustment to the new life we have now. I’m on point now to care for him when I get home and through the night with Michelle. And I’m on point now to make sure Michelle is doing well. And, to be honest, the exhaustion has caused me to go more intensely inward than usual, so I’m wondering if I’m really a Christian every week now when I see how sinful I am.
But, to add to all of this, last week on November 4, tragically my aunt was killed in a car accident. Nobody did anything wrong. Just slippery roads. With that, our family has been in shock, trying to understand that Sarah is now dead, and trying to collect the mess of it.
Working through my own feelings of understanding my aunt’s death and caring for my family has been another major investment of energy. Another point of need. Another means of exhaustion that’s a part of normal life.
Live feels very vivid right now. The amazing birth of Owen just four weeks ago, alongside the horrible death of my aunt last week makes the light and dark of life stand out in a stark contrast. Life feels like it’s been screened in technicolor. And yet, the effect of the exhaustion on me with the excessive inwardness I’m prone to is to make me numb and joyless, desperate and dry.
I’ve been reading Psalm 119 a lot recently. It’s probably because I feel the longing expressed in these verses resonating in my soul:
Give me life according to your word! (v.25)
My soul melts away for sorrow;
strengthen me according to your word! (v.28)I cling to your testimonies, O Lord;
let me not be put to shame! (v. 31)My soul longs for your salvation;
I hope in your word. (v.81)I am severely afflicted;
give me life, O Lord, according to your word! (V. 107)
I don’t imagine Psalm 119 is on the top of most people’s lists for Psalms of Comfort, or often used to speak life into sorrow. But for me, it has taken a place of helping me when my soul is numb and dry.
A major theme of the psalm is this voice of dependency upon God for the life he wants to live in God. One of the things I love about God’s revelation is that he doesn’t hide life’s realities. The writer constantly talks of his desperate need for God in the midst of life’s crushing realities. He longs for life, and continually bases his need and the solution on the foundation of God’s Word.
One of the things that happens when my soul is dry and numb and exhausted is that my love for God’s Word is drastically diminished. This, I think, is why I love Psalm 119 so much – God’s Word and my need for his Word are key realities in Psalm 119.
Psalm 119 is a woven tapestry of the psalmist’s need and God’s faithfulness to Himself through his Word to meet that need. It’s a technicolor psalm of the psalmist’s dependency and God’s reality meeting head on, wonderfully head on, in love. The psalm is a meditation on who God says he is in a world of stark realties, and the needs that world produces.
It’s not like I’m more dependent upon God than I was a month ago, but I am more desperate in my experience of my dependency upon him. God is answering the Psalm’s prayer for strength and life as meditate upon it and make it my own prayer. I’m increasingly aware of my own desperation in a way unknown in my soul before, which speaks more to my own block-headed spirituality than anything else. God’s Word is a lamp to my feet, and a guide for my weary soul. He’s not a soothing therapist, excusing my sin and need; nor is he a hard-hitting counselor, telling me to buck up. God puts himself on display in the context of a technicolor and vivid world and tells me to bring my need to Him.
The Strasbourg Inn 