Rejoice in the Lord, O My Sleepy Soul

Psalm 97

Is there a place for praise when the heart is not engaged? Let me explain.

I think that every believer knows what I am talking about, when we come to church on a Sunday morning, and we arrive on Sunday morning because it is on the schedule. Sunday morning worship takes place on Sunday morning. So, we show up on Sunday morning because it is the appointed time. But what if our heart is not engaged when the schedule dictates?

I am not talking about those who don’t really love the Lord, those who are trying to fool God with external religious activity but don’t love the Lord with all of their heart. I think the Scriptures are pretty clear that God finds this kind of worship offensive.

I’m talking about the seasons in life when it feels like we are sleepwalking through the clouds. While still committed in faith to the Lord, our “feels” are disengaged. It is like the connection between our minds and our spirits is clogged. The truths that should spark joy and life in our hearts just never seem to make it all the way down to our heart and soul.

Can I praise the Lord when my “feels” are disconnected?

Today, this is not a purely theoretical question. I am practicing the spiritual discipline of praying through the psalms. As part of my prayer time, my time alone with God, I am reading the psalm for the day, Psalm 97. My New Testament reading was from 1 Thessalonians 1, and that passage lit up my mind and soul. In that short paragraph, the Scriptures speak to who Jesus is, what Jesus did, and the transforming impact of faith. I was convicted, as a preacher, that not only should the word sound forth from me, but my faith should also sound forth everywhere (see 1 Thessalonians 1.8). I “felt” my mind and soul was fully engaged in the Word. But them, I turned to Psalm 97, and suddenly, the pipeline was disconnected.

Psalm 97 is a short song of praise describing the Lord on His throne, reigning over all the earth in righteousness and justice. His beauty and greatness is described with “mysterious” language like fire going before Him (3), mountains melting (5), and the earth trembling (4). The followers of other gods are called to leave their worthless idols (7) and worship the Most High God (9). The glory of God gets personal at the end where the transcendent God is also immanent. This great God over all the earth is also the One who preserves the lives of the saints (10), delivers them from the hand of the wicked (10), and sows light and joy for the righteous (11). The short song ends with this simple refrain: rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous (12).

So, why isn’t my heart and soul “feeling” it?

Surely, you have been here, too, right? Surely you also know the broken connection between your mind and your soul, where you fully believe in the beauty and greatness of God, that He reigns over all the earth and He preserves and delivers your soul, but your soul is struggling to rejoice, right? The earth might rejoice (1), the many coastlands might be glad (1), Zion might be glad (8), the daughters of Judah might rejoice (8), but this righteous soul is struggling to rejoice in the Lord. What’s wrong?

And then the Lord reminded me of this simple point: this is the whole reason for the spiritual discipline of praying the psalms.

Spiritual disciplines are the things we do to put ourselves in the pathway of God’s grace. They are intentional practices, habits, but by themselves they do nothing. They just position us in the flow of God’s transforming grace so that He can do something in us. Which means, at the heart of spiritual disciplines is the confession that we need God to do something that we cannot do, to transform us.

Which brings me back to Psalm 97 and the clogged arteries of my soul. The very problem of my soul this morning is the very reason that I need Psalm 97. The fact that my mind is not communicating with my soul is the “nothing” that needs “something.”

The words of Psalm 97 that elude my mind are the descriptions of God in mystical terms like clouds and thick darkness, fire, lightning, and melting mountains. My logical brain is trying to translate that into something that makes sense for my soul, but whatever I was pushing down the line was not getting through. I felt the disconnect, but my attempt to solve the disconnection was to awaken my soul by making it to think more like a mind. But Psalm 97 is challenging my mind to let my soul be awakened on its own terms.

For today, my mind was reminded of the Lord’s sovereignty, of His preserving work, of His call for me to hate evil. And all of that is good. However, my soul needed to be reminded of something else. And that something else was found in the verses of this song that my mind disregarded as superfluous.

To a sleepy soul, the image of God as both darkness and fire, both clouds and lightning awaken my sleepy soul to enter the majesty of God’s greatness. His beauty and greatness cannot be contained in logical words that make sense to me for my little mind is far too small to grasp this. Creation itself cannot grasp His beauty. All the earth can do is see His greatness and tremble.

Why is my soul sleepy? For this moment, the answer is simple: the humdrum day to day of life. Get up, exercise, go to work, run a few errands, rush home, eat dinner, go to sleep, wake up and do it all over again. We all know the routine, and it never stops. And sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes our souls get sleepy, sleepwalking through another day, even through another prayer time.

So, did all of this change my prayer time in Psalm 97? I wish. But it did awaken my soul to some degree. Instead of the song sounding like “blah, blah, blah,” my soul heard a word to lift up my eyes to see the beauty and greatness of this transcendent God in ways that my mind can’t understand.

Father, give my soul eyes to see. Awaken my sleepy soul to rejoice in the Lord and give thanks to His holy name.