I’m Afraid, But…I'm waiting

It isn’t certain that all of the psalms attributed to David (either 73 according to the Hebrew Masoretic text or 82 by the Greek LXX) were actually composed by the shepherd king. Some of these psalms of David may have been (and probably were) written by some other unknown and unnamed individual. But for the moment, let’s assume that they were, as tradition asserts, written by that famous son of Jesse. Let’s make that assumption and allow it to affect our interpretation of these psalms

And let’s compare David’s Psalter with ours…let’s compare David’s songs of witness to some of the songs in our Salvation Army songbook.

Our songs are bright, cheerful, songs. Few of them are written in minor keys. No… Our songs are happy, happy, happy all the time. According to our songbook, we’re going to smile, smile, smile and not frown, we’re going to be happy all the day. We may have been in a bad place and in a bad way before, but now that we have been saved from sin we have no worry, no pain, no fear, no doubt. For example:

From song #316 “Sunshine” by Richard Nuttall:
Sunshine, sunshine, shining along our pathway,

guiding, guiding, just where the Saviour would go;

Shining, shining, when all the way seems gloomy,
Jesus lights our way up to glory with sunshine rays.

From song #367 “We’ll All Shout Hallelujah” by Charles Wesley:
We’ll all shout hallelujah
as we march along the way
We will sing redeeming love
With the shining hosts above

and with Jesus we’ll be happy all the day.

From song #394 “Since Jesus Came Into My Heart” by Rufus Henry McDaniel:
Since Jesus came into my heart,
since Jesus came into my heart,
floods of joy o’er my soul
like the sea billows roll,
since Jesus came into my heart.

From song #395 “At the Cross” by Herbert Howard Booth:

At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light

and the burden of my heart rolled away;
it was there by faith I received my sight
and now I am happy all the day.

From song #801 “God’s Soldier” by Harry Reed:
We’re going to fill, fill, fill the world with glory
we’re going to smile, smile, smile and not frown;
we’re going to sing, sing, sing the gospel story,
we’re going to turn the world upside down.

I have, of course, been a bit selective in choosing these particular songs. There are some that are less ‘sunshiny’ than these, but they seem to be the exception rather than the rule. Our song book is filled with these victorious songs of joy – and this is not surprising for an army assured of its salvation and its victory.

But what has always – always – even from my childhood – bothered me (and dare I say it? – Offended me) about these songs is their almost aggressive cheerfulness. Honestly… anyone who is this exuberantly cheerful all the time is either using some sort of pharmaceutical or is being dishonest with him/herself and the world around. No one – not even our Lord and Savior, the son of God, Jesus of Nazareth - was always happy.

Now if we look briefly at those psalms attributed to David we’ll find something rather different:

Psalm # 3 was written as David was fleeing from his son Absalom, who had usurped his father, the king and had attempted to kill him – not exactly a “happy all the day” kind of psalm.

Palm #6 Yahweh, let your rebuke to me be not in anger…
Have pity on me, Yahweh, for I’m fading away,
heal me, Yahweh, my bones are shaken,

my spirit is shaken to its very depth,

but you, Yahweh, - how long?”

Psalm #13 How long, Yahweh, will you forget me? Forever?
How long will you turn away your face from me?
How long must I nurse rebellion in my soul,
[and] sorrow in my heart night and day?
How long is the enemy to domineer over me?

Psalm #22 My God, my god, why have you forsaken me?

the words of my groaning do nothing to save me
My God, I call by day but you do not answer
at night, but I find no respite.

I am, again, being selective here. There are other psalms that are filled with joyful praise, but these few (and there are many more) should serve to illustrate the fallacy of thinking that our lives – if we are good Christian men and women – will be continuously cheerful with never a moment of doubt, or despair, or anxiety or fear.

Our particular psalm for this morning is Psalm 27 – which in the translation that I am using (The New Jerusalem Bible) is entitled “In God’s company there is no fear.” This, I think, is not a particularly apt title for the psalm, for it seems to me that the psalmist (David, as we assume) is afraid. Listen to him:

Yahweh is my light and my salvation
whom should I fear?
Yahweh is the fortress of my life,
whom should I dread?

When wicked men advance against me,

to devour my flesh;
they - my opponents, my enemies,
are the ones who stumble and fall

Though an army pitch camp against me
my heart will not fear;
though war break out against me,
my trust will never be shaken.
(Psalm 27: 1 – 3)

I hear the psalmist praying this nervous prayer as a charm against the dark and a blessing against evil. It’s not that the psalmist is cheerful and confident. If he is brave, it is bravery in spite of his fear. And if he is confident, it is confidence in spite of his doubt. If he has light in his darkness, he knows that that flickering, faltering light comes from God.

But this isn’t without question; this isn’t without an “if”. Listen to the psalmist pleading desperately for God to hear him:

Yahweh, hear my voice as I cry
pity me, answer me!
Of you my heart has said,
‘seek his face';
your face, Yahweh, I seek;
do not turn away from me.


Do not thrust aside your servant in anger
without you I am helpless.
Never leave me, never forsake me,

God my savior.

Though my father and mother forsake me,

Yahweh will gather me up.

(Psalm 27: 7 – 9)

If we take it as an unquestioned matter of fact that God is omnipresent – in all places at all times – and that God will never leave us nor forsake us, we should be able to do without this kind of prayer – this prayer of desperation. Yet David cries out to God in earnest desperation, “Please, God, don’t leave me all alone!”

But why is he so desperate? Why should this man who is described to us as the “man after God’s own heart” be so fearful that God would abandon him to face his enemies all alone? Shouldn’t he have been singing “We’re going to smile, smile, smile and not frown”? Shouldn’t he have been confident and joyful and victorious? Didn’t he know that God is good and that God is faithful and strong?

Or to push the question further – Why did Jesus, hanging from the cross outside Jerusalem, scream that same question into the sky with his dying breaths, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

It isn’t a weakness to admit fear. It isn’t a failure to admit doubt. It isn’t a sin to be desperate. Again, hear this: It isn’t a weakness, a failure, or a sin to be. I think that it may be a weakness, a failure and/or a sin to pretend that we’re never afraid, or that we never have a moment of doubt, or that we’re always confident.

The idea that the Christian life is some sort of sunshiny, rainbow scented, marshmallow wonderland is not at all what the bible describes. The life of faith is not without distress and discomfort and fear, though I can understand the impulse to describe it like that. We want our faith to be credible. We want our belief to be desirable. We want people to look at us and see that our faith works. So we sell it. Perhaps we over sell it. We emphasize the blessings and we diminish the struggle. We make our faith into one of those before and after weight loss photos…

But I worry that this is the wrong way to go. If we sell our faith as being “happy all the day” and we tell people that “everyday with Jesus is sweeter than the day before” what happens when they (or we) come into a difficult time. What happens to our faith if we expect sunshine and roses and instead we find ourselves surrounded by enemies or dealing with illness? Our faith has to be – it must be if we’re going to be honest with ourselves and with the world around us – something more than a glossy advertisement with all the problems airbrushed out of the picture.

We have to be willing to admit that we’re afraid. We have to be willing to face our doubts. We must be willing to admit that occasionally we have doubts. Unless we think that our faith is different than David’s.

Because the psalmist David struggled. He despaired. He wept and he grieved and he shrieked out into the night shaking his fists into the skies for God in heaven to hear and to answer him. He was desperate for the presence of God in his life. The presence of God was the one thing that gave him any sense stability in a life of upheaval and danger

Yes. There was trouble in David’s life. There was danger. There was turmoil and strife. Some of it was of David’s own making. Some of the difficulty he faced was the result of his own poor choices. Some of it was the result of enemies who pursued him. But through it all, David knew where he could go for help.

One thing I ask of Yahweh
one thing I seek
to dwell in Yahweh’s house
all the days of my life,

to enjoy the sweetness of Yahweh

to seek out his Temple.


For he hides me under his roof
on the day of evil,
he folds me in the recesses of his tent,
sets me high on a rock.
(Psalm 27: 4 – 5)

David didn’t deny the fact that he faced trouble. He didn’t dismiss his doubts. He didn’t pretend that he wasn’t afraid. Instead he sought the presence of the one who could comfort him, and assure him. David sought the one who could protect and defend him.

When David began this psalm “Yahweh is my light and my salvation, whom should I fear?” He wasn’t saying that he wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t pretending to be fearless. The Psalmist was praying with quivering knees to the one who could come to him in his fear.

He is desperate for help, desperate for relief, desperate for comfort and protection and he waits. He waits for Yahweh. He can’t force it. He can’t hurry it. He can’t but wait. David waited for God to come to his aid. He waited for God to hear him. He waited (though maybe not patiently) for God to answer him. The psalmist waited because his hope was in the Lord. His hope was in the One whose presence could give him comfort and who could calm his fears.

When we are confronted with our fears – and we will have them – we can share the psalmists prayer “Yahweh is my light and my salvation, whom should I fear,” not because we are fearless, but because God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness. Let us wait, and let us hope in the Lord.