Reflections on Psalm 103:1-4

In church last night our pastor read through Psalm 103, pausing at various points to allow people to testify to God’s grace and help in their life as it related to a particular selection. I sat quietly and just listened to others. Not because there was nothing I could have said, but because I am still working through some issues that I feel need some degree of resolution before I’ll find myself at a point where I’m confident enough that I can speak up at church and know that I am speaking because God wants me to speak and not simply to be heard for my own, self-centered, reasons. It’s true that I’m also painfully shy and that also plays a role in my hesitancy to speak up. Perhaps it is even true that my shyness, more than anything else, keeps me silent. If that is the case, then I trust God will help me to overcome that when there is something He wants me to say.

In the meantime, the following are some of my thoughts as they relate to the first four verses of Psalm 103. (I’ve used the New American Standard Bible for scripture passages as it tends to be the version I read most often).

¹Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name.

As a starting point, I want to thank God for all of the help He has given me over the past couple of weeks. I've had some struggles, but God has helped me begin to recognize the deeper areas that are at the root of some of these surface issues I find myself struggling with. I thank God for that. In the past there have been times when I never was able to get my focus off the surface issues long enough to let God show me the deeper areas of need that require the bulk of the remedy God desires to provide. As I am learning to allow Him to refocus my attention on the things that matter most, I'm finding it easier and easier to let some of the surface struggles go. They just don't seem that important anymore. So, I do bless His holy name for patiently teaching me, moment by moment, the lessons I most need to learn.

²Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits.

To say I'm amazed at the benefits God has showered on my life, would be an understatement. These past two weeks have been two of the most amazing weeks of my life as I learn how to rest in God's love and allow Him to work out the details of all the issues that have so long overwhelmed me. There is no doubt that I have many lessons to learn and many long roads ahead to traverse yet. But learning to rest in the love of God seems to be 99% of the battle in most things and I'm thankful for the benefit of knowing God is always present in every situation to provide the help and grace I need.

³Who pardons all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases;

I don't think there can be any greater peace in this life than the peace that comes from knowing that all your sins have been forgiven. "My sin, not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more." I don't have to live in fear that there is some sin somewhere that somehow got overlooked. God has taken the whole sordid lot of them and forgiven them; not because I deserve that forgiveness, but because of His great love and mercy. And even beyond forgiveness, God has already begun the work of healing so many of the diseased areas of my mind and emotions. For many years I've believed a great number of lies regarding who I am and who God is. Already God is teaching me many things about being the man He created me to be and I am trusting Him to continue to do the work that needs done in my life as I walk with Him daily.

⁴Who redeems your life from the pit, Who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion;

Verse 4 is probably the verse that spoke most to me as I read through this Psalm. When I look at my past and see how God has protected me from sure destruction (the KJV actually uses the word "destruction" instead of "pit"), I'm overwhelmed by His love and compassion. There have been many times when I could have become involved in situations that could have destroyed my life in so many ways; yet God, in His mercy, held me back. At times I tried my best to jump into things that I knew were sin and far from God's plan for my life. Even during my most stubborn and rebellious times, God was working to keep me from a lifestyle that would have led to certain destruction and landed me in a pit from which I might never have escaped. I believe the prayers of family and friends can be credited with the sense of hesitancy that held me back from many of the things I could have become involved in. So, thank you to all who have prayed for me over the years.

Someday, perhaps, I will write more in depth on some of these things (or even on subsequent verses from Psalm 103) but, for now, it is enough to say that God's mercy and love have changed and are continually changing my life. My mind was so messed up before I came back to God that I honestly thought it could never be made right again. But God has worked a miracle and changed so much for me already. I understand that the renewing of my mind will be a continuing process, but God seems to have stepped in and worked in such a way as to reverse years of wrong thinking in ways that I would never have dreamed possible in such a short period of time. I'm praising Him for His indescribable goodness and looking forward to each new day of walking in His love.

Unredeemed

Lyrics from the song, Unredeemed

 

The cruelest word

The coldest heart

The deepest wound

The endless dark

For more years than I care to number, I lived in a very dark world. Weeks, months, even years where the darkness of depression inside of me was so great it actually seemed that everything around me was viewed only through a haze of darkness. Many years ago now, I even got to the place where I found myself thinking about suicide nearly around the clock. There was hardly a waking moment where I wasn’t thinking about how hopeless things were and how ending my life was the only way out.

Thankfully, God chose just the right moment to send a friend into my life who gave me a chance to consider the idea that other options might be available after all. For the first time in my life I was able to open up to another person about who I really was. About growing up a lonely little boy who was afraid of nearly everything. About coming of age and realizing I wasn’t attracted to girls like every boy is supposed to be at that age. And about all the years I lived in fear of what would happen if anyone ever found out about my misplaced attraction.

The lonely ache

The burning tears

The bitter nights

The wasted years

Realizing that I was attracted to other boys instead of girls, was one of the most difficult times of my life. I knew I wasn’t supposed to feel the way I was feeling, but I also knew that I didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to feel that way. As I looked back, I could find the beginnings of my same-sex attractions going back to my earliest memories of childhood; I just didn’t know what to call it then, nor did I realize the full implications of it until my early teen years.

During the period of years after coming to terms with the fact that I had same-sex attractions I went through some of the loneliest times I’ve ever experienced. A loneliness so deep that it really felt like it was crushing me from the inside out. Night after bitter night I would cry until there were no tears left to cry and wonder why God hated me so much that He decided to make me “gay.” I tried and tried to come up with a reason for why God had written me off and given me, what I considered at the time, the worst possible situation to have to deal with in life.

As I moved into my twenties and later my thirties, the bitter nights of sorrow began to include a bitter anger; anger toward God and anger toward others. I figured God deserved my anger because He could have prevented every hurt. Anger toward others because of my belief that they would hate me if they knew I was gay. During those years of my life, I couldn’t see the folly of being angry with others for their hatred toward me when I hadn’t even given them a chance to know who I was and make a decision to love or hate me for it. I just believed everyone would hate me if they knew, so my reality at the time was that I was hated by God and by everyone else.

I wasted a lot of years believing these lies about God, about myself (that I was unlovable and only deserved damnation), and about other people. I lost myself in self-pity and sinful behavior and refused to allow God to speak any truth into my life. Oh, there were times when I tried to make a move toward God, even times where I know He helped me with certain issues in my life. But I never really settled things with God or chose to accept His truth about His love for me for the long haul. In a short time I’d be right back to believing all the same lies I’d always believed about how much God must hate me and how much everyone would hate me if they only knew the real me.

For every choice that led to shame

There have been a lot of choices I've made over the years that led to deep shame and feelings of worthlessness. Choices I would give anything today to be able to go back and make over again so I could do things differently the second time around.

And all the love that never came

This is perhaps the hardest line of all for me. One of the most difficult issues for me to deal with is the idea of lost love. The loss of the love a boy has for another boy as his peer, his buddy, his friend. In his book, My Losing Season, Pat Conroy says "there is little on earth so fierce and inarticulate and life-changing as the love of boys for other boys." I've read that quote a million times and wished I had even the slightest idea of what it means. I have no clue what it’s like to relate to boys through every stage of my life growing up. Boys scared me. I was meek, mild, shy, and too timid to speak up about anything most of the time. Other boys were rough, outspoken, and (so it seemed to me) not afraid of anything. Here I was, afraid of almost everything and the only thing I knew from watching other boys was that boys aren’t supposed to be afraid. It wasn’t difficult for me to see how different I was from other boys. So I sat on the sidelines and watched from a distance. I watched the other boys play ball, wrestle around, and do all the things boys do, but I never felt a part of any of it. Even on the few occasions when I tried to enter into the activities of other boys in some way, I always left the experience feeling even more certain that I was nothing like other boys and never would be. So I feel like I’ve lost a great deal by having lost the kind of love that boys have for other boys as they grow together into manhood. That’s a love that is irreplaceable for me at this point. I’m nearing 40. I can’t go back and relive boyhood and experience all those things I missed out on the first time around. So I sorrow over the loss of that particular kind of love.

There’s also the love a man has for his wife. Another love that most likely will never be one I experience. Some days I’m okay with that. But I would be dishonest if I didn’t say there weren’t days where I feel the deep sorrow of something else missing and lacking from my life that others have opportunity to enjoy.

For every vow that someone broke

And every life that gave up hope

We live in the shadow of the fall

One of my most difficult lessons (one I’m very much still in the process of learning) is learning to keep my eyes focused on Jesus, off other people, and keep my ears deafened to the whispered lies of the devil. The lie says to give up hope; that I can’t make it; that my cross is too difficult; that I’ve been give too much to handle. And what makes those lies seem so believable at times is that there is an element of truth to them. I do need to give up. Not give up on hope, but give up trying to fix everything myself and learn to rest in God and allow Him to do the work that needs doing. I can’t make it. At least not on my own. I need God every second of every day to survive. My cross is too difficult to bear; on my own. I’ve got to learn to allow God and other believers to help me even though I often feel I don’t deserve help or am too afraid to ask for it. I have been given too much to handle…on my own. When I try to handle it all, I just become increasingly frustrated, angry, and depressed. I have to learn to stop trying to walk this road alone and allow God to come alongside and show me the way as well as allowing other Christian brothers and sisters into my life so that they can walk the way with me too. All of these things are issues where I need to grow and change. Changes that are made difficult because of the shadow of the fall, the humanity of those who would help even if very imperfectly sometimes, and my own slowness at learning the most important lessons of life.

But the cross says these are all

Places where grace is

Soon to be so amazing

It may be unfulfilled

It may be unrestored

But when anything that's shattered is laid before the lord

Just watch and see

It will not be unredeemed

 

But the cross! The cross says that grace can enter into each and every one of these areas and make a difference. That amazing things can result in the most broken and shattered of circumstances because of the cross. Yes, there may be things that are always unfulfilled and many things that will never be restored in this life but, because of the cross, we can have assurance of fulfillment and restoration in eternity someday. It’s not always easy to wait; to keep my focus on “someday.” But I do believe that God has promised to restore those things that have been lost in this broken and fallen world. I don’t know how it will happen, but someday I expect to have restored to me the lost loves and experiences that seem lost to me forever right now. The things is, right now is NOT forever and it’s time I stopped believing that it is!