It happened decades ago, but I still remember it as if it were yesterday. A young version of me was serving as a pastor in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Our parsonage was located in a quiet, wooded subdivision where almost all our neighbors were retirees. So I felt a need to watch out for them. One morning I was washing our car in the driveway. I noticed one of our elderly neighbors putzing around outside. I walked over and asked, “Heh! How’s it going?” With the most serious, sonorous voice he could muster, he looked me straight in the eye and dead-panned, “The doctor thinks I’ll make it.”
The look on my face must have been priceless. Because after leaving me twisting in the wind a moment or two, my neighbor bent over laughing, before he stood up and firmly clasped me on the shoulder. “Gotcha!”
Relieved, I joined in his hearty laugh, but also learned an important life lesson. I need to take care when I ask, “How’s it going?” Because some days don’t go that well.
Some days we need someone to go beyond pleasantries. We need a friend who cares enough to listen. To ask, “How can I help?” To act. Bring over a hot dish. Help with chores around the house. Shovel the sidewalk. Dust or vacuum. Run to the store to pick up a few groceries.
And care enough to shift the discussion to matters eternal. To faith. To the Lord. To dig into the Scriptures, where a good place to start is the book of Psalms. After all, the Psalms are God’s heavenly music, composed to touch our heartstrings. And one Psalm that helps on days not going so well? Psalm 42. A Psalm by the “Sons of Korah.”
“Sons of Korah”? Does that name ring a bell? Korah led a rebellion against Moses in the wilderness. (Numbers 16) Remember how that turned out? “The earth opened its mouth and swallowed up everyone who was with Korah, along with their households and all their possessions.” (Numbers 16:32)
There must have been a few third-cousins four-times-removed who survived that day. (Numbers 26:11) And centuries later, some of those “Sons of Korah” were appointed as Levitical musicians by King David! Even more remarkable? The Spirit made them lyricists of some divinely-inspired hymns in the Lord’s hymnbook.
Psalm 42 is one that reaches down and throws us a lifeline for those days that aren’t going so well. How? The Psalm touches us because the Sons of Korah write from their heart—directly to our heart. They dare to pull back the curtain on their personal lives, and show us how they hit rock bottom. “My tears have become my food.” “I am overcome by my emotions.” “My God, my soul is depressed within me.” “I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me?”
These Sons of Korah felt as if the Lord had lashed each one of them to a light like the one at the North Entry Point of the Portage Canal! During a November gale! Breaker after breaker pounded and crashed over them! (Psalm 42:7) Bad news so dominated their lives that even their bones ached.
Have you ever felt that way? Maybe it’s sleep-loss. Inability to make decisions or perform basic, everyday functions. Psychosomatic aches and pains. Lethargy. That was the Psalmist’s life. One huge mess! He was worn-out, empty, and ready to die.
Until the Psalmist lay hold of the Lord’s lifeline! “As a doe pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” (Psalm 42:1-2) The picture painted by the Psalmist is vivid, powerful! We can see this deer that has been pursued by hunters. Running, straining, leaping, fleeing for its very life! About to die unless it gets water! At the first safe opportunity, this deer will search for water, and in that water find life.
And we can easily paint ourselves into this picture, especially on those days when we don’t want to be asked, “How’s it going?” We confess as did the Psalmist, “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and appear before God?”
Then with knuckles turning white, we lay hold even tighter to the Lord’s lifeline, because he is our only hope! “Hope in God, for I will again praise him for salvation from his presence.” (Psalm 42:5) “Hope in God, for I will again praise him for my salvation from the face of my God.” (Psalm 42:11) The Psalmist’s life was a mess—one violent breaker after another crashing over him! Our lives are sometimes a mess. But when we lay hold of the Lord’s lifeline, there is hope. Solid. Certain. Eternal. Bound up with the Lord’s promise of “salvation.” A safety package unlike any other—bought and paid for by our Savior Jesus Christ and lasting into eternity in heaven above!
The Psalmist squashed the doubt that was eating at his soul like cancer, when he rested his heart and soul on the Lord, his Savior. “By day the LORD commands his mercy, and at night his song is with me―a prayer to the God of my life.” (Psalm 42:8) The Lord's love was the Psalmist’s lifeline. Because of that love, the Lord became for him the God of hope, instead of despair. The God of a future, instead of dead-ends. The God of life, instead of death.
“How’s it going?” Are the waves and breakers of your life threatening to drown you? And the harder you to try to think yourself out of this tight spot, the more confused you get? And the more you fight to push through it, the more exhausted you feel? Then listen to the heart-language of the Sons of Korah. They can honestly say, “Been there. Done that.” The only solution? It’s positively divine.
“Hope in God, for I will again praise him for salvation from his presence.”
Privileged to serve,
Rev. Glenn Schwanke
The look on my face must have been priceless. Because after leaving me twisting in the wind a moment or two, my neighbor bent over laughing, before he stood up and firmly clasped me on the shoulder. “Gotcha!”
Relieved, I joined in his hearty laugh, but also learned an important life lesson. I need to take care when I ask, “How’s it going?” Because some days don’t go that well.
Some days we need someone to go beyond pleasantries. We need a friend who cares enough to listen. To ask, “How can I help?” To act. Bring over a hot dish. Help with chores around the house. Shovel the sidewalk. Dust or vacuum. Run to the store to pick up a few groceries.
And care enough to shift the discussion to matters eternal. To faith. To the Lord. To dig into the Scriptures, where a good place to start is the book of Psalms. After all, the Psalms are God’s heavenly music, composed to touch our heartstrings. And one Psalm that helps on days not going so well? Psalm 42. A Psalm by the “Sons of Korah.”
“Sons of Korah”? Does that name ring a bell? Korah led a rebellion against Moses in the wilderness. (Numbers 16) Remember how that turned out? “The earth opened its mouth and swallowed up everyone who was with Korah, along with their households and all their possessions.” (Numbers 16:32)
There must have been a few third-cousins four-times-removed who survived that day. (Numbers 26:11) And centuries later, some of those “Sons of Korah” were appointed as Levitical musicians by King David! Even more remarkable? The Spirit made them lyricists of some divinely-inspired hymns in the Lord’s hymnbook.
Psalm 42 is one that reaches down and throws us a lifeline for those days that aren’t going so well. How? The Psalm touches us because the Sons of Korah write from their heart—directly to our heart. They dare to pull back the curtain on their personal lives, and show us how they hit rock bottom. “My tears have become my food.” “I am overcome by my emotions.” “My God, my soul is depressed within me.” “I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me?”
These Sons of Korah felt as if the Lord had lashed each one of them to a light like the one at the North Entry Point of the Portage Canal! During a November gale! Breaker after breaker pounded and crashed over them! (Psalm 42:7) Bad news so dominated their lives that even their bones ached.
Have you ever felt that way? Maybe it’s sleep-loss. Inability to make decisions or perform basic, everyday functions. Psychosomatic aches and pains. Lethargy. That was the Psalmist’s life. One huge mess! He was worn-out, empty, and ready to die.
Until the Psalmist lay hold of the Lord’s lifeline! “As a doe pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” (Psalm 42:1-2) The picture painted by the Psalmist is vivid, powerful! We can see this deer that has been pursued by hunters. Running, straining, leaping, fleeing for its very life! About to die unless it gets water! At the first safe opportunity, this deer will search for water, and in that water find life.
And we can easily paint ourselves into this picture, especially on those days when we don’t want to be asked, “How’s it going?” We confess as did the Psalmist, “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and appear before God?”
Then with knuckles turning white, we lay hold even tighter to the Lord’s lifeline, because he is our only hope! “Hope in God, for I will again praise him for salvation from his presence.” (Psalm 42:5) “Hope in God, for I will again praise him for my salvation from the face of my God.” (Psalm 42:11) The Psalmist’s life was a mess—one violent breaker after another crashing over him! Our lives are sometimes a mess. But when we lay hold of the Lord’s lifeline, there is hope. Solid. Certain. Eternal. Bound up with the Lord’s promise of “salvation.” A safety package unlike any other—bought and paid for by our Savior Jesus Christ and lasting into eternity in heaven above!
The Psalmist squashed the doubt that was eating at his soul like cancer, when he rested his heart and soul on the Lord, his Savior. “By day the LORD commands his mercy, and at night his song is with me―a prayer to the God of my life.” (Psalm 42:8) The Lord's love was the Psalmist’s lifeline. Because of that love, the Lord became for him the God of hope, instead of despair. The God of a future, instead of dead-ends. The God of life, instead of death.
“How’s it going?” Are the waves and breakers of your life threatening to drown you? And the harder you to try to think yourself out of this tight spot, the more confused you get? And the more you fight to push through it, the more exhausted you feel? Then listen to the heart-language of the Sons of Korah. They can honestly say, “Been there. Done that.” The only solution? It’s positively divine.
“Hope in God, for I will again praise him for salvation from his presence.”
Privileged to serve,
Rev. Glenn Schwanke
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