Remember - August 23
When I was at the height of my misery in Garissa, I couldn’t see beyond it. My entire world had shrunk down to that little concrete room, my sweaty foam pillow, my sickness, and my discomfort.
Have you ever been in a situation like that? A time in your life where it seems like there is absolutely no way out? Where all you can see is your own misery?
It doesn’t have to be physical hardship. It could be depression, broken relationships, addiction, or even just the garden variety existential dread we all feel when we’re doom scrolling and thinking about the state of our broken world…
What are you supposed to do when all you can see is the pain?
Well, that’s the question we are going to try and answer today as we conclude our series, “Remember.”
If you’ve been with us for the past few weeks, you know that we’ve been exploring Psalm 107 together, which is all about gratitude in the hard times.
So I’m going to go ahead and give away the ending. The answer to our question - What do you do when all you can see is the pain? - is this: You practice gratitude.
But of course I know that some of you hear that and think, “Oh, ok. Just be grateful. Sure. I’m in the pit of despair and I’m supposed to, what… put on a happy face? Just count my blessings and my problems will go away?”
Well, no. That is not, in fact, what Psalm 107 is saying.
The kind of gratitude we’ve been talking about in this series isn’t some naive Pollyanna fantasy. It’s not about making your problems go away through the power of positive thinking. It’s about transforming the way we see the very nature of our reality, even when there’s no end in sight to the pain that we’re facing.
Why don’t we all grab our Bibles and turn to Psalm 107, and I’ll show you what I mean. I’ll pray for us, and then we’ll get into it.
SERIES RECAP
First, let’s talk briefly about what we’ve covered so far. Psalm 107 is a call to communal thanksgiving or gratitude. It was sung by the people of Israel at festivals to remind them how far they have come as a community. It opens with these lines:
Psalm 107:1-2
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good!
His faithful love endures forever.
Has the LORD redeemed you? Then speak out!
Tell others he has redeemed you from your enemies.
In other words, if you’ve got a story to tell of God’s faithfulness, don’t keep it to yourself. Speak out!
Why? Because, as we talked about in week 1, Gratitude changes the way we think.
And I mean that literally. Neurologically. Our brains are constantly changing, reinforcing the patterns we establish in our lives.
When we find ourselves stuck in patterns anxiety, fear, helplessness, etc., gratitude has been scientifically proven to re-wire our brains. It decreases our anxiety, it increases our resilience, it changes the very way that we think…
Being grateful in community is even more powerful, because when we are in those moments where our own pain is all we can see, listening to the gratitude of others can do the same type of work in our brains.
That’s the invitation of Psalm 107. “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.” And I would add the unspoken implication, “and the rest of us are gonna listen.
As we’ve seen, the psalm goes on to tell four stories of people delivered by God.
• Wanderers in the wilderness whom God led safely home.
• Prisoners wrapped in chains of their own making released from their bondage by God’s mercy.
• Those sickened by their own sin and rebellion being snatched from the doors of death by God’s love.
• And, as we saw last week, sailors being tested by God on the stormy seas brought safely back to harbor.
Each of these stories points directly to one attribute of God which made them these “happy endings” all possible. It’s the Hebrew word, khesed - unfailing, loyal, covenantal love
This is the chief descriptor of God throughout the Old Testament and in Psalm 107, it’s the primary reason for us to have gratitude. Because no matter our circumstances, God’s khesed never fails.
All four stories repeat the exact same line:
Psalm 107:8, 15, 21, 31
Let them thank/praise the LORD for his khesed, and for the wonderful things he has done for them.
That’s the message of the psalm: God’s khesed never fails. He has either come through for you in the past or he will come through for you in the future. Being grateful for that truth can change the way you think about the present.
Today we are going to see how Psalm 107 ends: with a fascinating meditation on this idea.
A HYMN OF KHESED
Let’s read, starting in verse 33. As you’ll see, here we move from narratives to something more like a hymn. Notice we also switch from past to present tense. We’re talking about who God is. What he does.
Psalm 107:33-43
He changes rivers into deserts,
and springs of water into dry, thirsty land.
He turns the fruitful land into salty wastelands,
because of the wickedness of those who live there.
But he also turns deserts into pools of water,
the dry land into springs of water.
He brings the hungry to settle there
and to build their cities.
They sow their fields, plant their vineyards,
and harvest their bumper crops.
How he blesses them!
They raise large families there,
and their herds of livestock increase.
When they decrease in number and become impoverished
through oppression, trouble, and sorrow,
the LORD pours contempt on their princes,
causing them to wander in trackless wastelands.
But he rescues the poor from trouble
and increases their families like flocks of sheep.
The godly will see these things and be glad,
while the wicked are struck silent.
Those who are wise will take all this to heart;
they will see in our history the faithful love of the LORD.
Alright. Let’s dig into what we just read. Let’s start with this image of God transforming the natural world.
Verse 33. “He changes rivers into deserts.” Verse 35. He turns “the dry land into springs of water.”
Obviously this is literally true with God as the creator of all. But when you skim through the Old Testament and see just how frequently the biblical authors use this image of God transforming the natural world, it’s clear that this is also a metaphor.
In the book of Isaiah, for example, there are 8 separate passages which all describe God restoring the wasteland as a symbol of Israel’s future hope. “One day,” the people understood, “this broken world will be healed - injustice and isolation will end, violence will cease - and we will return to the abundant garden of God’s goodness together.” That’s what we see here in verse 37.
Psalm 107:37-38
They sow their fields, plant their vineyards, and harvest their bumper crops. How he blesses them!
In other words, this is Israel’s hope. And think about it. For ancient subsistence farmers in the arid Judean hill country, this was a powerful image. No wonder it’s all through the Bible.
Ah, but here’s where the twist comes in. Because just as frequently in Scripture, we also find the inverse metaphor. God turning fruitful land into a desert. Why? Well, as a form of judgment. Look at verse 34.
Psalm 107:34
He turns the fruitful land into salty wastelands, because of the wickedness of those who live there.
Again, recognize that this is a metaphor. But what it’s describing is a common motif in the Bible. This is an uncomfortable topic today, but it’s the way our spiritual ancestors understood the judgment of God.
Sometimes, when people choose to rebel against God’s desires - through injustice or violence or greed, for example - when they try to make a paradise on their own terms at the expense of others, the consequence is a drying up of God’s abundance, both for themselves and, unfortunately, for others as well.
That’s what sin does. It breaks our world. It spreads the wasteland; not the garden. And here’s what’s uncomfortable: God allows us to make that choice.
Well, suffice it to say, Psalm 107 depicts both realities. God transforming the wilderness into a garden in his unfailing love and God turning the garden into a wilderness as judgment for sin.
The question then becomes, “What am I supposed to do with this?” I mean, this is a psalm all about gratitude, so what exactly is the lesson here about being grateful?
I mean, it’s easy to give thanks to God when we’re being blessed and our “herds of livestock” are increasing. When our vines are fruitful, so to speak. But what if we find ourselves like those in verse 39, “decreasing in number” and “becoming impoverished?”
To get back to our main question for the day. What are you supposed to do when all you can see is the pain?
BENDING THE ARC
Well, here I find the message of Psalm 107 nuanced, but really powerful. Let’s look more closely at verse 39.
Psalm 107:39-40
When they… become impoverished through oppression, trouble, and sorrow,
the LORD pours contempt on their princes,
causing them to wander in trackless wastelands.
There’s God’s judgment in action again. These princes - these greedy earthly rulers - bring about wilderness through their rebellion. They cause a drying up of God’s abundance, which unfortunately, because of the nature of power, affects more than just themselves.
As the first century historian Tacitus once wrote about the Roman Empire,
“They make a wasteland and call it peace.”
-Tacitus, The Agricola
That’s what the powerful do. Meanwhile, everyone else - the poor, the weak, the vulnerable - has to pay the price of their corruption.
But here’s where the hope comes in: that situation is never the end of the story. Because God’s khesed never fails. Look at the very next verse:
Psalm 107:41-42
He rescues the poor from trouble
and increases their families like flocks of sheep.
The godly will see these things and be glad,
while the wicked are struck silent.
The point, I believe, is that Psalm 107 is taking a grand view of human history. After telling these four stories, the author is stepping way back and saying,
“Yes. There are times when we are in the wasteland with no way out. There are times we are wallowing in prisons of our own design. There are times we are adrift on the chaotic sea.”
But no matter where we find ourselves, God’s khesed - his faithful love - endures. It’s what he does. It’s who he is. The khesed of God will be the final word of history.
The world is broken, but it will be healed. The wicked prosper, but they will face judgment. Empires rise but they will fall.
I think this is exactly what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. meant when he said,
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Psalm 107 is simply a reminder that it’s God’s khesed that’s doing the bending.
Psalm 107:1
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good! His faithful love (khesed) endures forever.
That’s how Psalm 107 begins. With the faithful love of God. That’s also where it ends.
Psalm 107:43
Those who are wise will take all this to heart; they will see in our history the faithful love (khesed) of the LORD.
This is the truth our spiritual ancestors held onto. God’s khesed will ultimately win the day.
Which is even more significant when you remember that the context of Psalm 107 was the exile. God allowed enemy nations to carry his people away to far off lands. He allowed Jerusalem to be destroyed as a consequence of the sin, injustice, and corruption of his people.
The garden of the Promised Land became a wilderness in God’s judgment.
But they also understood that wasn’t the end of the story. They had hope that God’s khesed would endure. And their hope was well founded.
After the exile, God began bringing his people home. And then, to everyone’s surprise, he was born as one of them.
Jesus Christ, whose death on the cross demonstrated God’s khesed in action. God judged human sin but took the consequences on himself so we could be free of them.
Or, to use the language of Psalm 107, God entered the wilderness that we designed so he could bring us home.
No conversation about God’s judgment is complete without an acknowledgment of his mind-boggling grace.
And let’s not forget that Jesus didn’t stay dead. His resurrection was just the first of all of our resurrections in the coming New Creation. The resurrected Christ is a foretaste of the garden God has prepared for all his children.
The authors of Psalm 107 understood where things were headed, and they hadn’t even met Jesus yet.
Which brings us right back to the need for communal thanksgiving. Verse 43. The wise will take all these testimonies of God’s deliverance to heart. They will remember what God has done because it points to what he will do.
When you are deep in your pain, it is hard to see the bigger picture.
But together, when we share our experiences (big and small!) of God’s goodness and deliverance and redemption in our individual lives, when we speak of how the love and mercy of Christ has lifted us from our self-loathing and shame, we can start to see a pattern at work in human history.
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. The arc of your life is long but it bends towards resurrection. Towards the embrace of your Savior for eternity. And again, it’s the khesed of God doing the bending.
What are you supposed to do when all you can see is the pain? You Give thanks for what God has done because you know he’s going to do it again.
This isn’t the power of positive thinking. This is the mind-altering practice of remembering who God is.
CONCLUSION
When I was sick and despairing in Garissa, I couldn’t see beyond my misery.
What I didn’t understand until later is that God was using that experience of hardship to prepare me for the next 10 years, where I’d be traveling around the world and living in places even more uncomfortable than that.
A 22-hour sleeper-class journey on a stifling train in India. A bed made out of logs in a spider-filled hut in Panama. Giant rats jumping on my bed in South Sudan.
With each experience, I grew in my expectation that God was going to bring me through it. And not just that, but that he’d be teaching and shaping me every step of the way.
I was doing all of this traveling to write about how the local church was healing injustice.
So along with my physical discomfort, I was also being exposed to some of the worst horrors imaginable: preventable diseases, hunger, sex trafficking, crushing poverty… I saw the wilderness of human misery on full display.
And yet, with each of these stomach-churning realities came stories of how the Church - how followers of Christ - were embodying his love, generosity, mercy, and justice. How they were transforming the wilderness of their world into a paradise as living conduits of God’s love.
Again and again and again I saw God’s khesed as where all of this is pointing. The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward redemption.
That’s why today I have hope no matter how broken our world is. No matter how miserable I am. Because I have seen, through my story and through the stories of countless others, a track record of God’s faithfulness and love.
Yes, I still face depression and disillusionment. Yes, I still struggle with the wasteland of a broken world. We all do.
But I don’t wonder if God cares anymore. I know he does. He has proven it over and over again in some of the worst places on earth. In some of the worst moments of my life.
What I wonder when I face brokenness now is, “God, how in the world are you going to redeem this one? I can’t wait to see it. I don’t know how you’ll transform this wasteland. I’m just grateful knowing that in the end you will.”
Psalm 107:43
Those who are wise will take all this to heart; they will see in our history the faithful love of the LORD.
If all you can see is the pain right now, my encouragement is simple. Look for the khesed of God at work. In your story and the story of others. How has God’s unfailing love met you in your past hardships? And how has he shown up in the lives of those around you?
If you practice gratitude for what God has done in the past, and if you give thanks for what God is going to do in the future, it will change the way you think about the present.
Give thanks for what God has done because you know he’s going to do it again.