- God speaks from the blanks.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Wherever the Psalter is abandoned, an incomparable treasure vanishes from the Christian Church. With its recovery will come unsuspected power.” In search of devotional potency some years back, I took up the challenge to incorporate Psalms in my daily devotional time. I have never looked back.
I love the Hebrew poetry that occupies the middle of our Bibles. There have been times in my life when I prayed through fifteen psalms on a daily basis. Currently, I utilize about five a day. They have provided me with a pattern of praise and thanksgiving, confession and intercession and have unfailingly met my spiritual hunger.
The psalms consistently provide inspiration for small group study and discipleship. This morning, for instance, a pastoral group that has been meeting together now for fourteen years pondered Psalm 6. One of the seven so-called penitential psalms, it contains many interesting nuances.
The first paragraph ends by describing David’s bones (his bones!) as being “horrified” (NASB). I am not sure what that might feel like, but the reader gets the distinct impression that it is probably not a pleasant experience. Just a few words later, his whole being and his very soul were “very horrified.”
The Psalmist asks, How long will this situation be allowed to last? He pleads with the Lord – rescue me, save me. Then he describes himself: weary from groaning, his bed is drenched with tears, his eyes swollen with grief.
In my Bible, between verses 7 and 8 there is a white space. A seeming break in the action. The new paragraph begins with what scholar and commentator Derek Kidner calls an “outburst of defiant faith.”
- Depart from me evildoers!
- The Lord has heard me!
- The Lord has accepted my prayer!
- Wanna talk about horror? It is my enemies who will now be greatly horrified!
Despite depression, exhaustion, fatigue, and heartbreak, David expresses confidence in God. Right before the effusive boldness that comes the blank space.
What happened in that space? Did he rise up and go get a cup of coffee before finishing the song? Did he walk around the block, praying? Did he have a nice long discussion with his wife or some friends? Did he fast and meditate, then complete the poem a few days later?
Or did his poetic mind simply say Enough of this! Enough!
Hard to know, but something caused a major pivot of perspective.
Perhaps in every song, poem, and moment of our lives, a radical change of outlook might come in a slightly different way—a beverage, a conversation, a prayer. But profound theology can come clear in the blank spaces; we should be careful with that space and not discount it.
In his musings on Psalm 6, a friend declared, “It is His presence—that’s the space in-between our paragraphs. When He comes, the mind shifts.”
“Pray these Psalms, asserts N.T. Wright, “and they will sustain you on the long, hard but exhilarating road of Christian discipleship.”
And don’t forget the white space.
