Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools--Psalm 139:1

Day 8

I have to admit to worry.

Is worry a sin?

I think maybe it is a sin if I push God’s blessings away because I seem to lack faith.

Billy Graham writes:

“Many people trust more in worry than trusting God. For the Christian, worry can be sin, which demonstrates our lack of faith in God who has given us the richness of His constant abiding presence. We must counter our worry by thinking about the promises of God found in the Bible, such as casting our cares upon the Lord because He greatly cares for His own.”

Karen discovered yesterday, along with a terrible itching rash that has popped up in the last week that some of her luscious curly hair might be falling out.

Up until yesterday, we had been sort of riding a wave of This Isn’t So Bad.  Take a daily chemo pill, feel a little discomfort, but not much, shrink the tumor, then the demi-god surgeons at Duke University will remove the tumor and ALL WILL BE WELL.

So, yeah, experiencing Karen’s sadness at realizing that the Imatinib is building up in her system and starting to attack her body as well as the tumor, created anxiety in both of us.

We know, we know, we know that we must counter our worry by thinking of His blessings in our life.

We don’t want to know how hard yet the battle is going to be.  

I don’t want Karen to suffer and so…

I worry about every little atmospheric change in her mood.  I monitor her breathing, (Too breathy?  Why is she sighing?  Is she anxious?), the brightness of her eyes, the words that she speaks.

Once again, the Holy Spirit rides to the rescue with a small essay of maybe some wisdom I need to hear as we take on this next day.

Tyler Staton references Psalm 139 in Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools and while I’ve explored the dichotomy of Psalm 139 before (particularly how verses 19-24 delve into David’s fervent wish for God to put the wicked and those he hates to death), I was captured by the very first line:

Psalm 139:1 Lord, You have searched me and known me.

God already knows my struggle today with the circumstances of Karen’s cancer and so He knows I don’t mean to be faithless when I worry about…well, every bad thing that could happen from here on out.

Jesus knows too.

Dane Ortlund writes in Gentle and Lowly:  The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers

“If you are in Christ, you have a Friend who in your sorrow, will never lob down a pep talk from Heaven.  He cannot bear to hold Himself at a distance.  Nothing can hold Him back.  His heart is too bound up with yours.”

He’s right.

I don't want a pep talk.  I want to know that Jesus has ME.

Maybe this reflection is my smallish effort to confess that I am worried and that maybe I’m worried for no good reason–and yet I still worry

Staton writes:

“Spiritual maturity means more confession, not less.  Maturity is discovering the depths of my personal brand of falleness and the depths to which God’s grace has really penetrated, even without me knowing it.”

I’ve never been particularly mature about any aspect of my life, certainly not spiritually, but like verse 1 says–God already knows that and I feel like I can at least provide moments of amusement to Him as I make my way forward.

Yesterday, while sitting on the beach with my parents and my nephew and his wife (but without Karen because she can’t take the heat or the sun), I actually asked Jesus to escort Satan away from me as my thoughts seemed to be caught in a whirlpool of worry.

Right after I said to myself that Satan wants me to worry, two-thirds of the former Beach Patrol (the group of 3 friends that I used to walk the beach and pray with regularly) walked up.

Jesus knows when to send the prayer warriors in!

Eugene Peterson describes how God ADDS to our lives when we need to be forgiven in Tell It Slant:  A Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers:

“God does not deal with sin by ridding our lives of it as if it were a germ, or mice in the attic.  God does not deal with sin by amputation as if it were a gangrenous leg, leaving us crippled, holiness on a crutch.  God deals with sin by forgiving us, and when He forgives us there is more of us, not less.”

Far from being carried under by worry, I was able to express my worry to them and to celebrate Karen’s strength in the face of her body struggles and her own worry.

God knows.

Sinclair Bugeja writes about God’s complete knowledge of us in An Exegetical Analysis of Psalm 139:

“The psalm is like a prayerful meditation, and full of awe. Knowing that his heart must be cleansed and his motives pure, the psalmist contemplates the complete knowledge that God has of him and all his doings. It is a knowledge bound up with a loving care and purpose, going back to ultimate origins, continuing in the intricate working and weaving in the womb.”

I told Karen yesterday in the car, that we will learn what we are supposed to learn and we will joyfully accept the trials and the blessings as they come.

Super big-talk.

That was before I sat on the beach and felt the worry creeping up inside of me like an abnormally high tide.

God knows that my struggle with worry, Karen’s struggle with worry is all about us drawing closer to Him.

Pope Benedict wrote for a general audience about Psalm 139 in A Song of Confidence: God Is Always With Us:

“The knowledge referred to in this psalm is more than intellectual understanding. It is a biblical knowledge which is a communion between the one known and the One who knows: The Lord is, therefore, in an intimate relationship with us whenever we think and whenever we act. God is present in all of space and time: He is in the heavens and in the depths of the earth; he is in the light and in the darkness.”

God is there in the light and the darkness of my life.

Jesus isn’t going to abandon me to my worry.  He’ll give Satan the bum’s rush out of my head.

Yeah, I’ll still worry, but not because I don’t have enough faith in Him.

God knows.  🙂

Lord, we are grateful that even in our weakness and our failure that You do not turn away from us.  Help us to rest in the assurance that we are fully known and loved by You.

Lord, we understand that we do not have to hide or pretend because You understand us better than we understand ourselves.  Give us the strength to walk in Your ways.

Amen.