Meditation on Psalm 4

Psalm 4 is one of the Psalms traditionally included in the Anglican service of Compline, the last office of the day. In just eight verses, it touches on much of the Christian life. I invite you to walk with me through a meditation on this Psalm, whose text runs as follows:

Answer me when I call, O God, defender of my cause;

you set me free when I am hard-pressed;

have mercy on me and hear my prayer.

“You mortals, how long will you dishonor my glory;

how long will you worship dumb idols

and run after false gods?”

Know that the Lord does wonders for the faithful;

when I call upon the Lord, he will hear me.

Tremble then, and do not sin;

speak to your heart in silence upon your bed.

Offer the appointed sacrifices

and put your trust in the Lord.

Many are saying, “Oh, that we might see better times!”

Lift up the light of your countenance upon us, O Lord.

You have put gladness in my heart,

more than when grain and wine and oil increase.

I lie down in peace; at once I fall asleep;

for only you, Lord, make me dwell in safety.

Answer me when I call, O God defender of my cause;

This is a God who answers when we call. Not the watered-down God/ess of contemporary ” spirituality without religion,” readily accommodating the worship of life-force or the self; nor the conveniently distant God of cultural Christianity, in which faith is a soft and comforting tradition without any of the sharp edges of reality.

No – this is the God who answers when we call – whether we like what He has to say or not. For as He is our Maker and Redeemer, so too is He our Judge; and as He defends us against the unjust, He also rebukes us when we are in error, to guide His children back onto the right path.

You set me free when I am hard-pressed;

The Lord gives us freedom from the bondage of sin; He gives us freedom to choose Him. I long to serve Him, for in His service is perfect freedom; but without His liberating hand I can do nothing. But by His death Christ has already won the victory over sin and death; no matter how hard-pressed I am, by the pressures of the world or the tumult in my own heart, I can trust in the victory of the cross, knowing I am free in Christ.

Have mercy on me and hear my prayer.

We have to ask for mercy precisely because we don’t deserve it – otherwise we would ask for justice, not mercy. We are sinners, and asking for mercy means admitting that we can’t get it right ourselves. How hard that is, sometimes! But we are redeemed through the blood of our Savior. How glad I am that our Lord is merciful!

Have mercy on us, and hear our prayer. As for me, so often, O Lord, I just want to be heard. Father, You may or may not do what I ask of You, because only You know what is best for me; but knowing that You hear me is enough. So often I feel that I have to shout to get noticed., but You hear me even when I whisper, even when my heart pleads silently.

“You mortals, how long will you dishonor my glory; how long will you worship dumb idols and run after false gods?”

This God doesn’t just pay attention to me on Sunday mornings – but all the time. He has standards. He knows that I’m not living up to them, and He’s calling me on it. What idols do I have in my life? Money and possessions, the “good life”? Control, power? Self-esteem – am I myself the idol that I worship?

The Enemy is clever and dangerous: we might laugh at the idea of bowing to a statue of Baal in the living room, but to what else do we sacrifice our time, money, attention, love? A bank account or a Blackberry, a promotion or prestigious schools, fashionable clothes or a new car: do we worship these? These are just as false as a statue of Baal. Even if some of what we worship is a constant stream of sound and images, these things are still dumb idols: they speak but do not hear.

Know that the Lord does wonders for the faithful; when I call upon the Lord, he will hear me.

He doesn’t specify that He does wonders for the powerful, or the wise, or the knowledgeable, but for the faithful. There aren’t any qualifications required: “everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matt. 7:8). That promise is beautiful, and also (if you think about it) a little scary – because there’s no excuse to not ask.

Do we not ask, because we are afraid that He won’t hear us? Or because we’re afraid that He will? Let us be brave and call upon the Lord and ask Him to do His wonderful work in our lives – for He will.

Tremble, then, and do not sin; speak to your heart in silence upon your bed.

He is not a plush and cuddly God, to reach for only when we need comfort and be left on the shelf the rest of the time. He is dangerous: when He sets to work in our hearts, He changes things. Yes, we should tremble before the Lord our God; there is a reason why it is right to fall on our knees in worship. He is our loving Father, and also the Alpha and the Omega, our Maker and Redeemer, without whom the stars would not stay in their courses nor would we so much as draw a breath.

Let us take a moment, in silence, to open our hearts in awe, in fear and trembling, and ask Him who made us to shape us, teach us, and guide us.

Offer the appointed sacrifices, and put your trust in the Lord.

We no longer present burnt offerings as in Old Testament times. What then? The liturgy of the Eucharist in the Book of Common Prayer is a beautiful expression of what sacrifices are pleasing in the eyes of the Lord: “Here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies.”

That is quite a lot to offer – in fact, it’s everything. And that’s why we need to trust in the Lord: not to hold anything back in reserve, “just in case” this God thing doesn’t work out. No, we have to trust Him completely: the radical trust of the stranded mountain climber letting go of the cliff to take the outstretched hand from above.

Many are saying, “Oh, that we might see better times!” Lift up the light of your countenance upon us, O Lord.

Despair is easy. Trust is hard. In the grip of powerful, impersonal forces – the economy, the housing market, outsourcing, downsizing, natural disasters, war – those “better times” may seem hauntingly out of reach. But we have a light, the Light of Christ: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:5).

You have put gladness in my heart, more than when grain and wine and oil increase.

What are the material blessings we might look for today? A good job, health insurance, a reliable car, food in the refrigerator, paid-off credit cards, a home of our own. Yes, these are good things – but more precious than any of these is our relationship with the Lord. For the Lord blesses us His children with good things in our lives, and we enjoy them; but it is in looking beyond the gifts to the Giver that we find true gladness.

Here is Christ’s radical challenge. Can we, with the Psalmist, rejoice in the goodness of all these gifts, yet also affirm we rejoice more in the Lord? Are we willing to let go of any or all of these good things, if we discover that in our hearts we have begun to worship the creation instead of the Creator?

I lie down in peace; at once I fall asleep; for only you, Lord, make me dwell in safety.

God’s peace is a gift, so simple and yet so rich, so easily lost in the hustle and bustle of modern life, but always available for us to ask for and receive from our loving Father.

No matter what roles we may take on during the day, in sleep we become vulnerable, trusting to our Lord to see us safe through to the morning.

So as we trust ourselves to Your care during the hours of the night, O Lord, help us learn to do so during our waking hours as well, that we may do the work you have given us to do, to love and serve you, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

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