Solve my riddle

Psalm 49..."I will solve my riddle...Why should I fear in times of trouble?" The Psalmist reflects on why he is afraid when he sees others in the "abundance of their riches." It's my riddle, too. Why do I become anxious and worried when financial pressures hit? Or envious when I see others living easily in their wealth? The obvious "duh" answer is, "I'm afraid I won't be able to supply for my family. I'm afraid I won't have enough to eat or a place to live or clothes to wear." Jesus agrees those are legitimate needs: "Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all." (Matthew 6:32) But Jesus disagrees about being fearful and anxious about those needs: "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on." (Matthew 6:25) God feeds the birds as a daily sign and promise that he will feed you. God will "much more clothe you" than he does the grass of the field with flowers. God tells us to trust that he'll supply for us, not all we want, but all we need.

So, is the riddle of my fear really about the essentials of life? Or is it a subtle lie that I'm afraid I need more than the essentials to feel secure? A buffer for my trust in case God gets distracted from the business of meeting my needs? The Psalmist says that kind of fear is grounded in the lie that security--beyond having just the essentials of physical life--can be found in the power of wealth. That if I have enough money, then I can face any crisis or challenge to my life with confidence. It is shown to be a lie because rich people die everyday and cannot stop it from happening, no matter how great their resources and power. How many more funerals must I experience to see this lie for what it is?

The key to solving the riddle of fear is to take a wider view of our lives, beyond the 75 year average our physical bodies might tend to last. "Even the wise die; the fool and the stupid alike must perish and leave their wealth to others." (Psalm 49:10) Overcoming fear means we have to ask daily, "Where is my confidence?" It is a guaranteed fact that each of us will be separated from our stuff, and it is "foolish confidence" (Psalm 49:13) to think any of it will be of help to me on my deathbed. When we die, our physical "form shall be consumed in Sheol, with no place to dwell." (Psalm 49:14) But for those who have faith and trust in Jesus' righteousness and life in place of their own sinful life, "God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me." (Psalm 49:15)

The answer to the riddle of fear is to invest in a personal and real relationship with the God who ransoms and redeems and promises he will meet my needs in this life, and "receive me" after the mist of my physical life has vanished. Lord, help me remember this every day, especially when I am tempted to believe again the lie of money and wealth that leads me to fear and anxiousness.

Through you and through your name...there is victory in suffering

Psalm 44 gave me two truths to ponder this morning. First, the psalmist confesses that all of Israel's military victories were not simply the result of their own power and might, even though they had to participate in the fight--their enemies did not just lay down and surrender. "For not by their own sword did they win the land, nor did their own arm save them, but your right hand and your arm, and the light of your face...Through you we push down our foes; through your name we tread down those who rise up against us." (Psalm 44:3, 5)

The paradox that "I worked harder than all of them--yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me." (1 Corinthians 15:10) is not just a New Testament truth. This is the way God has always worked in and through his people. We try and we give all of our strength in loving God and people, but we do it "through" God and his name, and God does it through us.

The second observation is that God doesn't seem to be doing his part (at least according to the Psalmist). "But you have rejected us and disgraced us and have not gone out with our armies." (Psalm 44:9) Could it be that some unconfessed or hidden sin is the culprit here? Not so, says the psalmist: "All this has come upon us though we have not forgotten you, and we have not been false to your covenant. Our heart has not turned back, nor have our steps departed from your way." (Psalm 44:17-18)

So what seems to be the problem? The psalmist can think of no other possibility than that God is lazy, distracted, hiding or angry: "Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever! Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?" (Psalm 44:23-24) The psalmist can think of no reason for suffering if the people of God are being faithful.

But the apostle Paul, writing hundreds of years later, quotes from this very psalm of disorientation in his letter to the church at Rome: "If God is for us, who can be against us?...Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, 'For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.' No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us." (Romans 8:31, 35-37)

God's being "for us" and working through us does not mean we won't suffer what appears to be defeat, even death. But Paul sees here (because of the revelation of Christ) what the psalmist only saw from a distance: that God's power in and through us gives us victories "in all these things" (defeats, sufferings, tribulations, etc.), not from all these things.

God works through us, and God loves us as he works us through our suffering.