Wisdom Comes From Worship

Psalm 73: 13 - 17 - NKJV

13 Surely I have cleansed my heart in vain, And washed my hands in innocence. 14 For all day long I have been plagued, And chastened every morning. 15 If I had said, “I will speak thus,” Behold, I would have been untrue to the generation of Your children. 16 When I thought how to understand this, It was too painful for me— 17 Until I went into the sanctuary of God; Then I understood their end. (Italics added)

My great-grandfather only had an eighth grade education that I know of.  He was a carpenter by trade, and a farmer by necessity.  And though he was neither wealthy, nor “well educated”, he was a wise man.  I remember as a 10 year old boy full of pride telling him that I had figured out that I didn’t have to bow to pray, because God could hear me from a standing position just fine.  Pappaw took me by the hand and led me out the back door to survey the corn rows he had planted on the land behind his house and taught me a lesson that I have never forgotten.  “You see those stalks over there?  The ones up top that are standing straight up?  They’re empty.  But the ones that are full and have good ears bow under the weight.  Son, if God’s filling you up, you’re gonna naturally bow down.”  I don’t know if Pappaw came up with that gem, or if someone had taught it to him and now he was passing it on to me… but it had an impact on me that has lasted.

The beginning of wisdom for Pappaw started with realizing our limitations as human beings.  Foolishness began with our forgetting that God has none.  Worship was, for him, the place that allowed wisdom to grow.  And for the Psalmist, I think the same is true.  The book of Psalms is an anthology of songs, poems, and prayers that have been spoken, sung, and prayed by individuals and communities in a wide variety of social and historical settings.  Their mood moves back and forth between assurance and doubt… between joy and despair, and then back again. As people address God in the midst of varying circumstances, they can find themselves overwhelmed by those circumstances or surprised by the overwhelming gifts of a bountiful God in them.  The fact that God stands outside of those circumstances and chooses to speak into them fills us up and allows us to understand a hope that we could not have otherwise.  The 73^rd Psalm is an example of just that realization.  The proclamation that entering the sanctuary of God creates a refuge for God’s child and a restoration of faith, leads me to believe that there is a correlation between holy spaces in worship and the gaining of wisdom that allows us to actually believe in and then “tell of all [God’s] works” (v.28).  The centrality of temple life (or worship) as the foundation of (and formative power for) the Psalmist’s hope is shown in Psalm 73 in a couple of ways: 

1) God’s heightened presence in sacred space (or spaces set apart from the profane world); and 

2) the relationships between God and God’s people.  

There is a strength found not only in communion with God, but also in fellowship with one another that both empowers and encourages (hopefully) more righteous choices to be made by God’s people.  Being both built for and by the relational aspect of covenant life leads us more and more to take on the image of our Refuge (and maybe even become refuge for others in the process).  We are recipients, and participants… heirs, and workers… sinners made into saints by the receiving and responding to grace offered freely.  Living a new life made worthy out of worthlessness, dying to our old self as the new self is raised in its place, because the God of creation seeks to be in constant relationship with us… and gives us the ways in which to do it.

This realization points to a strength in a covenantal communal bond that is interconnected to and interdependent with the community of faith and our Creator.  If we are to experience any success in our endeavors we need to be communing with the giver of all blessing to make sure that we are seeking to align our will with God’s rather than trying to bend God’s will to ours.  In those places, spaces and times we are being prepared to receive anew the loving gift of our Heavenly Parent’s mercy and kindness which become a refuge against the wickedness that seems to constantly assail us.  But beyond that we are filled with strength for what we are called by God to do at the end of Psalm 73 (and then is echoed throughout the Gospels from the Great Commission in Matthew, to the Epistles, et al), to “tell of all [God’s] works” to the end that God’s people and creation are restored in the presence of their Creator.

I pray that you find a Holy place to get wiser in this week... And that through that experience you can be the salt and light that Jesus proclaimed you to be.

Your servant in Christ,

Chris