Psalm Meditation 956
Proper 23
October 14, 2018

Psalm 142
1 With my voice I cry to the LORD; with my voice I make supplication to the LORD.
2 I pour out my complaint before him; I tell my trouble before him.
3 When my spirit is faint, you know my way. In the path where I walk they have hidden a trap for me.
4 Look on my right hand and see—there is no one who takes notice of me; no refuge remains to me; no one cares for me.
5 I cry to you, O LORD; I say, “You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.”
6 Give heed to my cry, for I am brought very low. Save me from my persecutors, for they are too strong for me.
7 Bring me out of prison, so that I may give thanks to your name. The righteous will surround me, for you will deal bountifully with me.
(NRSV)

Sometimes the restraints we feel are of our own making. We feel put upon by external influences even when the real pressure is from within. Someone cautions us to stay out of the street because there is a lot of traffic today and then that person walks away. The warning is external. If we stay out of the traffic, the pressure is all from within us. Most of us become aware of the difference in adolescence. We hear the cautions and warnings and heed them. While the constraints have been internalized we may experience them as external.

Other times we wish we still had the physical restraints because we have become dependent on them. When we have learned to ride a bicycle with training wheels, it is a scary experience to take those first few rides without them. We have freedom we are not quite sure we are ready to experience. It takes a few rides to recognize that we have internalized the help the training wheels give. We have our own sense of balance that is not dependent on the extra set of wheels.

Is the psalmist feeling lost and alone due to being trusted with new skills or responsibilities or actually being ignored by friend and foe alike? Either way, the psalmist looks to God for help and comfort. We don’t know if there is a need for comfort from a sense of abandonment or encouragement in a new test of skill and responsibility. Both are daunting. The two experiences can feel similar. And God is available to the psalmist and to us in either situation. God can sit with us when we feel abandoned from being ignored and can cheer us on when we feel abandoned in the pressure of acting on our own.

October 8, 2018
LCM