Psalms 13:2
How long must I take counsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
Tag: A Dangerous Residual Impact of Conflict
In Psalm 13 we have a passage of King David when he was being attacked, or threatened by one of his enemies. He begins the Psalm like this:
Psalms 13:1
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
Four times in the first two verses he cries out, “how long.” He is complaining that God seems to have neglected him in this conflict. He wants God’s salvation ... and, he wants it today!! We have all been to that place!! That desire to be free from the conflict and the pain it brings is a natural part of the human experience. We want freedom from the conflict because, when you are in it, we do really foolish things. Job, in his conflict, began to question God’s love and grace ... that is very foolish. Jonah, in his conflict, made a foolish decision and ended up in the belly of a fish in the bottom of the sea. Peter, in his conflict, denied Jesus three times. Conflict makes us do foolish things. In the above verse, David asks, “How long must I take counseling in my soul ... ?”. This may be one of the worse residuals of being in a conflict: We begin to look for answers in our own souls. The Hebrew word for soul here is “nespes” and it is used over 600 times in the OT portion of the Bible. It is the mind, heart and/or inner being of a person. Today we might say it this way: “How long must I consider my own mindset while in this affliction?” The problem with conflict (that God does not instantly provide an answer for) is that we will, more often than not, seek answers in our own, tired, sinful mindsets of the past. Job, Jonah and Peter all did that. We all do that. Because we don’t see an immediate response from God we seek our “own counsel.” The problem is, we don’t think like God thinks. We are not God. He is, we are not. God’s ways are higher than our thinking:
Isaiah 55:8-9
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
When we are in conflict and we don’t see God’s rescuing and working (God Works behind the scenes more often than not) we revert to what we know. And, what we know is often the reason we are in the spot we are in. We are so locked into our old mindsets we don’t allow God to break through into our lives with His ways. He asks that we live by faith and trust Him, even when it makes no sense to our common mind. Think of Peter being told by Jesus to “walk on the water.” That is ridiculous and Peter went into his own mindset and began to sink into the water. When God does not speak, immediately, we tend to sink into our own minds. This is one reason why we need read God’s every day and be mediating on it every chance we get. When we don’t focus on God’s Word we will always fall into our old mindset. Our mindset is twisted with sin, corrupted with memory, and heavy with guilt. Yet, God’s Word is refined. Note what David says in the Psalm just before this one:
Psalms 12:6-7
The words of the Lord are pure words,
like silver refined in a furnace on the ground,
purified seven times.
You, O Lord, will keep them;
you will guard us from this generation forever.
So, “how long?” We don’t know how long before we see how God will intervene. But, in the process we need to make sure we DON’T fall into our own “counsel;” our own “minds.” Because our mindsets are not, typically, in a good place. When God is not typically moving as fast as we want ... but in the mean time, we need to make sure we focus on God’s known word and allow it to trump our mindset.
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