This morning's meditation was on Psalm 138, and it opened with a line I couldn't get past: though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly. It's one of those truths that seems too good, too beautiful to be true. The Creator of the universe is not distracted by greatness or impressed by status. He sees the humble. That means He sees me — not because I have achieved anything remarkable, but because His character is full of steadfast love.
But sitting with that verse, I couldn't help but feel the distance anyway. His help seems far away. And the thought crept in — maybe I've been proud, and that's why. Maybe He has resisted me. It's a strange thing to hold two truths at once: knowing, in my head, that God regards the lowly, and yet feeling, in my heart, that He's somewhere far off. I know it, but I don't always feel it, not all the time. There's a real gap between what I know and what I feel, and I think that gap is just part of being human rather than a failure of faith. Knowing something true and feeling it settled in you are different muscles. They don't always move together. Some days the knowing has to carry you until the feeling catches up.
I think, too, of how conflicted I am — full of contradictions, almost like the Underground Man from Notes from Underground. We all have a demon to face, and maybe only God can help with that. But there's a difference between him and me. The Underground Man is trapped by his contradictions, paralyzed by them, kept spiteful and underground. I don't want to stay there. Naming the mess in myself and then turning to say and yet, I have an advocate — that isn't staying underground. That's reaching for something outside myself instead of curling around the mess.
And that's the other thing that's been on my mind lately — watching a video on the Hebrew of Scripture and being undone by it. That I have a God, in Jesus, who is capable of empathizing with what I'm going through. Not a distant judge assessing whether I've done enough, but someone who has been through it and now speaks up for me from the inside of the same experience. He is my advocate before the Father. That's a strange kind of comfort — not you'll be fine shouted from a distance, but I know, I was there too, from someone who then also happens to hold my case.
David's confidence, I wrote this morning, is not rooted in an easy life but in a faithful God, and the difference matters. I often find myself waiting for peace to arrive through changing circumstances, but this Psalm gently reminds me that God frequently begins by strengthening the heart before He changes the situation. I cannot always see what He is doing in my life. Some prayers remain unanswered, some dreams delayed. Yet David anchors his confidence not in his own understanding but in God's enduring love. Perhaps that is the invitation of this Psalm — 'to keep walking faithfully through trouble, trusting that the Author of my story has not put his pen down' (what I wrote in my diary).
Reading those words back with fresh eyes reminded me of something I already knew but needed to feel again — that I'd answered my own question before I even asked it. The fear was never really, am I disqualified. The Psalm never made it about achievement in the first place. It was always about His character, not mine.
I came to today feeling somewhat empty, worried about a future in a way I know isn't good. But I'm sad, and I have reason not to be. Both things are true. And I'm glad — glad I could pour out what was weighing my heart heavy, and glad that some days, all it takes is reading your own words back to remember what you already knew. Your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever.
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