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Psalm 25

If scholars are right about the choral and instrumental forces at the disposal of those who organized Temple worship, then we might imagine that many of the psalms we are reading together would have been performed with tremendous aesthetic effect. I don’t know whether you have sat in a symphony hall before an orchestra and a choir, but the impact of the music actually being produced in front of you is almost overwhelming to the senses. No recording, even played on a sophisticated sound system, can match human beings creating music at such a high level. Put this additionally in the context of worship, and, well, it is a kind of experience of heaven. However, there are a group of psalms, of which Psalm 25 is one, where the volume seems to be turned down considerably. It is like moving from the symphony to the string quartet. The mood is intimate, reflective, confessional. It is as if we are given an insight directly into the thoughts and feelings of a human being—remarkable enough for a contemporary let alone someone separated from us by such a great gulf of time. And yet, in the kingdom of the faithful, time does not mean very much at all. We worship a God who dwells in glory in a single eternal moment in which all our notions of past and future are effectively irrelevant. We can therefore hear the psalmist’s words being echoed in our own experience.

We have the impression that this psalm was written by a person (perhaps, indeed, King David himself) who is looking back reflectively on an eventful life. Verse 7 certainly places the person in mature age; one would hardly speak of the “sins of my youth” if he had barely emerged from the first flush of adolescence! It is a psalm that reflects on God’s trustworthiness, steadfastness, and faithfulness over considerable time. On a human level, I suppose we can think of the way a marriage develops. The love between two people changes, deepens, and develops as they face, and overcome, the challenges of life together. The psalmist has been through a great deal, we feel, and now experience teaches him that God can always be trusted. When he says “All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness, / for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies” (verse 10), we feel this is not merely a pious hope but a spiritual statement of fact based on hard-won experience.

The psalm starts with a movement of repentance and recollection. What is this “lifting up of the soul” but the way in prayer we offer up to God the person we are, with all our struggles and problems? In many ways if all we do in prayer is to hold steadily and honestly before God the person we are, then we have done enough. The sick person shows his or her place of sickness and asks for healing. This, of course, takes a great deal of spiritual self-awareness and humility. The psalmist mentions this tremendously important spiritual virtue: “He leads the humble in what is right, / and teaches the humble his way” (verse 9).

There is obviously great advantage in humility if it means that we get the personal attention of God. However, in our modern times, humility has received a rather bad press, and I suppose it stands to reason in cultures that seem self-obsessed and made dizzy by the desire for image and reputation. It worries me considerably that we appear to have created a culture where, through one media or another, people can live out almost a complete fantasy life. They pick up and set down lifestyle choices genuinely believing that they can become whatever they have chosen. Do they ever stop to ask who they truly are? Are they afraid that they, when revealed to the cold light of day, might be unattractive, dull, or friendless? Do they not know that God has created them with love? Sometimes I detect in people a real panic that when all the acting stops, there will be no one left to take the bows. Everything about the Christian faith encourages a right sense of humility, because humility is essentially self-knowledge. We do not imagine we are anyone else; we do not dance with empty shadows. We know our sins and our blessings, and we “lift up our soul” every day to Christ because we believe that he has the biggest share in helping us become the people we were created to be. May his name be praised.

For Reflection

How do you lift up your soul to God?

Prayer

Almighty God, bless you for being you. Help me become truly myself. Grant me humility and wisdom. Amen.