The Interiorizing of Faith

Psalm 88

“These people profess the story form of salvation, but fail to fill it, or let it be filled with prayer. They end up all plot and no character.” (Eugene Peterson)

Psalm 88 is a dark prayer, or at least a darkly honest prayer prayed from a very dark place. The subscript attributes the song to Heman, one of the singers placed in leadership by David (see 1 Chronicles 25.4). Heman is not only crying out to God in a season of pain, when his soul is full of troubles (3) and great sorrow (9), he is very clear as to the source of his pain.

It is all God’s fault.

In this song of eighteen verses, Heman blames God thirteen times for his misery: You remember me no more (5), You have put me in the depths of the pit (6), Your wrath lies heaven upon me (7), You overwhelm me with all Your waves (7), You have caused my companions to shun me (8), You have made me a horror (8), You case my soul away (14), You hide Your face from me (14), I suffer Your terrors (15), Your wrath has swept over me (16), Your dreadful assaults destroy me (16) and surround me like a flood all day long (17), and You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me (18).

Subtle Heman is not.

Absent from this cry of pain is a supposed reason for God’s anger. We might assume God’s wrath (7) is a consequence of Heman’s sin, but there is no confession in this song to indicate such. Perhaps God is angry with the nation as a whole and Heman is just caught up in the wash, but no hint of that plotline exists. If we are looking for a reason for his struggle, we are left disappointed.

Heman tries to “guilt” God into action, if I might use that phrase. God should save him because the departed will not rise up to praise You (10), no one in the grave is able to declare Your steadfast love (11), no one in the darkness knows Your wonders (12). You get this picture. If God fails to rescue Heman from impending death (3), then God will be robbed of praise.

The song is laced with Heman’s confessions of who he believes God to be: my salvation (1), steadfast love (11), faithful (11), worker of wonders (12), and righteous (12). But there is an obvious omission from this prayer. There is not statement of hope or trust that we usually find in lament psalms. We are looking for a “but I will trust in You” at the end, but we don’t find it. The song ends with a restatement of his premise: You have caused my problems (18).

Eugene Peterson, in his book Answering God: The Psalms as Tools for Prayer, reminds us of good storytelling. “There is a kind of storytelling that relies exclusively on the manipulation of plot to get its effects. In such stories, there is no development of character and no cultivation of atmosphere” (55). These are the popular novels of spies and detectives and lovers, the same plot over and over again. Real writers, Peterson says, don’t do this. Instead, “they work from the inside, discovering the way the world is, patiently uncovering the slow growth of personality, the long and subtle changes that sin works in the mind, the secret movements of grace” (55). His point is that poor writing regurgitates the same plot over and over, never exploring character development, never wrestling with the deeper issues of being human in a fallen world.

We can do that with our faith, too, speaking trite slogans or simple answers to deep questions that omit the demanding “interiorizing of faith” (55). As Peterson writes, “The story of salvation has predictable outlines, but the individual character of the saved person is never predictable. That is always unique. The uniqueness is carved by prayer. We would like, if the Spirit would allow it, to interiorize only random bits and pieces of our lives on the occasions when we felt like it. The Psalms do not permit that—they are a rigorous interiorization of everything, the gamut of the human condition, in the story of salvation” (55-56).

A rigorous interiorization of everything, the gamut of the human condition. Character over plot.

One of the ways that the psalms has come alive for me is by identifying the crisis behind the prayer. Most prayer originates in times of trouble, so I try to identify the trouble so I can relate to the prayer. In other words, identify the plot. But Peterson is calling me out, telling me that this simplified reading of the psalms is poor listening. Some psalms, like Psalm 88, won’t let us discover the plot.

Part of the gamut of the human condition is that we go through seasons of great pain and don’t know why. We would confess our sin if that would bring relief, but we don’t see any. We would rejoice in God accomplishing something bigger or preparing us for greater service, but there is no evidence of either. And since we believe in the sovereignty of God, we can justify blaming God for our pain. And it does make much more sense to us for God to rescue us so that we can praise Him. Why just let the righteous die?

And if we were honest, in those moments, we are pissed off at God. Of course, we don’t want to say it, but we are. You did this to me, and it is so unfair.

Character development 101.

I may never know the situation that caused Heman to cry out to the Lord, but I will face moments when my soul is full of troubles and I cannot make sense of it. Abandoned, weak, darkness, overwhelmed, sorrow, terrified. All of these words will resonate with me at some point. In this moment, how will I answer God?

In the words of Peterson, “God pulls us into the story. When we believe, we become willing participants in the plot. We can do this reluctantly and minimally, going through the motions; or we can do it recklessly and robustly, throwing ourselves into the relationships and actions. When we do this, we pray. We practice the words and phrases that make us fluent in the conversation that is at the center of the story” (56).

My answer to God, as I sit beside Heman, is not about the plot but about character development. What are You doing in me?

Quotes are from Eugene Peterson, Answering God: The Psalms as Tools for Prayer.