Rediscovering One’S Faith

"How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book."– Henry David Thoreau

About 12 years ago I discovered the Book of Psalms. Or, shall I say, the book discovered me.

The Psalms, save for Genesis and Revelation, is the easiest book in the Bible to find. You just take one whole Bible, which is actually a collection of 66 books, open it in the middle, and you get the Psalms. Here in the center of the Bible are ancient songs, cries from the heart by people who took God seriously, through times of distress and happiness, in poverty or in plenty.

I have lived a pretty well bookmarked life. What I mean is, books have marked the stages of my life. I had my "lost generation" years reading Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms. My existentialist days with Kafka’s The Trial. Agnosticism was brought in by Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and Cheknov’s stories. Then CS Lewis’ Mere Christianity convinced me to believe again that God exists.

In all these books, I had the feeling of someone talking to me, telling me what to believe in. But when I read the Psalms, I had this strange and liberating feeling that it was finally me talking, if you understand what I mean. Which is why I say this book discovered me.

Me... as I struggled with the seeming unfairness of it all:

"As for me, my feet had almost slipped;

I had nearly lost my foothold.

For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked." (73:2,3)

Me, in those lonely hours:

"For my days vanish like smoke; my bones burn like glowing embers...

I am like a desert owl, like an owl among the ruins.

I lie awake, I have become like a bird alone on a roof." (102:3,6,7)

In black despair:

"How long must I wrestle with my thoughts?

and every day have sorrow in my heart?

How long will my enemy triumph over me?

Look on me and answer, O LORD my God.

Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death. (13: 2,3)

Shamed by my failures and sins:

"Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways

according to Your love remember me

for You are good, O LORD...

For the sake of Your name, O LORD,

forgive my iniquity though it is great...

Look upon my affliction and my distress

and take away all my sins." (25:7,11,18)

This book gave words to my hopes:

"I am still confident of this:

I will see the goodness of the LORD

in the land of the living."(27:13)

And my faith:

"Whom have I in heaven but You?

And earth has nothing I desire besides You.

My flesh and my heart may fail,

But God is the strength of my heart

and my portion forever. (73:23-26)

It voiced out my prayers and praises in all its varying shades and moods.

With this book I moved on from the beloved books of my past. With this, I left behind the sad poets and singers of my youth: Stevie Smith, Pablo Neruda, Neil Young, Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell, The Beatles... It was, for me, a new era of the heart.

The Psalms were written over a long period of time. The earliest psalm can be traced back to the time of Moses, who wrote Psalm 90, one of my favorites. It passes through the golden era of King David, who wrote most of the psalms, and his son King Solomon. Later psalms cover the period of the Isralites’ tragic fall as a nation, conquered and brought to ruin by foreign powers. The armies of Assyria, and later on Babylon, enforced large scale exile to majority of the Jews during their occupation of Israel. The latest psalms, however, are the songs of the generation of those who were able to return and rebuild their homeland. Between 1050 BC and 400 BC would then be an approximate date for the writing of all the 150 psalms: a book that grew from the real life tragedies and triumphs, humiliation and hopes of a people for whom God was a living, all-pervading, inescapable reality.

The Psalms dispel the notion of a distant and impersonal God. Here is a God who makes a difference in life – an active, strong and loving King. A God before whom you can be honest.

The psalmists do not cover up their problems. They do not put up a front and act sanctimoniously. They simply pour it all out before their God. When they are angry, even angry with God, they say so. Disturbed, resentful, happy, depressed, doubting, joyful, thankful – they express it all. From this book I learned, and am still learning, how to be honest with God and with myself.

A time must eventually come in a man’s life when he decides whether to take God seriously or not. If God is who He says He is, then – as a character in a Flannery O’Connor story says – "there’s nothing left to do but to get up and follow Him." The psalmists do not try to prove the existence of God; everywhere they simply assume that God is. For them, everything begins with God, everything moves on with God. And when all is said done – after all that we’ve been through – there is still God, worthy to be praised. That is, in fact, how the Psalms end: with one final "Hallelujah" – the last among a long series of hallelujahs. Praise the Lord – but not with the shallowness and silliness with which these words are uttered today.

Reading the Psalms, you know these are praises wrung from a broken heart.