At the End of Our Tether
I have recently visited Helen
Cleary at Madigan Estates Nursing Home. If you had a chance to visit your loved
one in a nursing home during this pandemic, you would feel the atmosphere of
isolation, sadness, and hopelessness now more than ever. When I got there in
Helen’s room, I could notice immediately that her body and mind were even more
failing than I had seen her in the hospital last time. She kept saying, “I am
cold, freezing cold. I can’t stand this cold.” Probably Helen is going through
more difficult times than most of us in this room at this time. But in our
pilgrim journey there are times when we too feel stuck and isolated and don’t
see any light at the end of the tunnel. Then, what should we do? The central
message of Psalm 123 is so beautifully simple to state: at the end of our tether there’s a place called Prayer.[1]
The God of Heaven
We don’t know exactly what the
psalmist was going through, but what we know is that he has reached “saturation
point.” In verse 4 he says, “We have had more than our fill of the scoffing of
the proud and the contempt of the arrogant” (NLT). When the psalmist feels like
he is pushed past his limit, at the end of his tether he looks up. He prays:
“To you I lift up my eyes,
O you who are enthroned in the heavens!”
When he lifts up his eyes, the
psalmist sees the God of heaven who still
reigns. Recently, I read an article by Eric Foley, co-founder of Voice of
Martyrs Korea. His team has been doing balloon launching ministry which sends
only Bibles to North Korea by balloon for 15 years. But this ministry met
increased pressure from authorities in South Korea since June this year because
of political tensions between North and South Korea. Pastor Foley and his team
have been doing these launches for 15 years and none of these things were
problems or issues before. All of sudden, according to the governor, they are
now guilty of fraud, mismanagement of donations, security risk, and possible air
traffic violations. So now Pastor Foley is under ongoing police investigation,
and he had to appear at the police station at least four times so far. In the
article he shares what the Lord has been teaching him through this time as
follows:[2]
Even when God’s good gifts are used
in ways that seem to threaten or thwart God’s promises, God’s will is always accomplished. In fact, it is the glory of God
that he fulfills his promises especially
through the actions of the very people and circumstances which seem to
endanger his promises the most. This includes our persecutors and enemies, as
well as secular authorities. His will is
always done because each moment emerges directly from his hands, shaped
precisely according to his promises that are guaranteed.
The Lord Jesus is the source and
end of all power. Pastor Foley says that accepting this reality fundamentally changed how he viewed the authorities
and his persecutors and enemies. This
reality removed the fear, anger, despair, defiance, and weakness he
initially felt in their presence. When we are hard pressed on every side –
whether it’s people, or circumstances, or sickness, or loss of the loved one –
all we have to do is look up. When we
lift up our eyes, we see the God of heaven who still reigns.
Prayer as Counter-Attack
At the end of our tether, there’s a
place called “prayer.” Another important lesson we can learn from Psalm 123 is,
prayer is not a passive, idle activity.
Prayer is the most powerful,
effective, courageous counter-attack we can possibly launch. The situation
the psalmist is in is desperate: “Our soul has had more than its fill” (verse
3). The problem has penetrated into the very heart of the psalmist. He had to
face contempt, ridicule, scorn beyond what he could bear. So now the psalmist
launches his counter-attack, “prayer.”
This psalm is very applicable to
the situation of Nehemiah. When Nehemiah decided to restore the walls of
Jerusalem, his enemies – Sanballat and Tobiah – mocked him, saying, “That stone
wall they are building – any fox going up on it would break it down.” Then,
Nehemiah didn’t react to them; instead, he looked up and prayed to the God of
heaven, “Hear, O our God, for we are despised; turn their taunt back on their
own heads, and give them over as plunder in a land of captivity” (Neh 4:4).
Afterwards, Nehemiah had to deal with oppression by the Jewish nobles and the
officials towards the powerless. He had to confront the powerful and the proud.
He must have met resistance. It could be very lonely, risky task. But he just
wanted to do God’s will. And he did it with much prayers. He prayed, “Remember
for my good, O my God, all that I have done for this people” (5:19). Sanballat
and Tobiah were persistent. They made a threat to report Nehemiah wish to
become their king. They made every effort to frighten Nehemiah and weaken his
hands, so that he might quit his work. But again, Nehemiah prayed, “But now, O
God, strengthen my hands!” (6:9) When we are at the end of our tether, the most
powerful counter-attack we can launch is prayer, because our struggle is not
against enemies of flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces of evil in
the heavenly places (Eph 6:12).
Mercy, God, Mercy!
So far we have learned two lessons
from Psalm 123. First, at the end of our tether there’s a place called
“Prayer.” Second, prayer is not a passive activity, but the most powerful
counter-attack. And last but not least, when we come to pray, our posture
should be the one of a servant. The
psalmist prays in this way:
“As the eyes of servants look to the hand of
their master,
As the eyes of a maid to the hand of her
mistress,
So our eyes look to the Lord our God, until
he has mercy upon us.
Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon
us” (vv. 2-3a)
The psalmist cries out to God three
times, “Mercy!” “Mercy!” “Mercy!” Eugene Peterson paraphrases this prayer as
follows: “In obedience we pray “Mercy!” instead of “Give us what we want.” We
pray “Mercy!” and not “Reward us for our goodness so our neighbors will
acknowledge our superiority.” We pray “Mercy!” and not “Be nice to us because
we have been such good people.”[3]
We come as those without merit. We come not because we deserve, but because God
loves us no matter what. We come just as we are.
Just as I am, without one plea
But that Thy blood was shed for me
And that Thou bid'st me come to Thee
O Lamb of God, I come! I come!
Yes, we pray for justice in this
broken world. But if God exercises his justice over our life, we cannot stand
before him. We need God’s mercy as well as his justice. “He does not deal with
us according to our sins… As a father has compassion for his children, so the
Lord has compassion for those who fear him” (Ps 103:10, 13). That’s who God is.
So at the end of our tether, we come to God without merit, without deserving.
We pray to the God of mercy with patience, with confidence.
Trust, Trust, Trust
In one of Henri Nouwen’s books, he tells about the lesson of trust. One time Nouwen had a chance to watch the circus, flying and catching as elegant dancers. One day he was sitting with Rodleigh, the leader of the troupe, talking about flying. The leader said, “As a flyer, I must have complete trust in my catcher. The public might think that I am the great star of the trapeze, but the real star is Joe, my catcher. He has to be there for me with split-second precision and grab me out of the air as I come to him in the long jump.” “How does it work?' Nouwen asked. “The secret,” Rodleigh said, “is that the flyer does nothing and the catcher does everything. When I fly to Joe, I have simply to stretch out my arms and hands and wait for him to catch me and pull me safely over the apron behind the catchbar.” Then, he continued with so much conviction, “A flyer must fly, and a catcher must catch, and the flyer must trust, with outstretched arms, that his catcher will be there for him.”[4] Prayer is not to try to grab God. It is to fly and stretch out our arms, trusting and waiting for the Catcher. And God the Catcher will be there for us, grab us in his time and pull us safely to his place.
Back to my story with Helen Cleary. While I was there, Helen said to me several times, “I don’t know.” But then later, she said, “A better day is coming.” At the end of our conversation I said, “Helen, I am only allowed to be here for an hour. But Jesus is with you in this room 24/7. He is always near. He is able to help you. Trust him!” The enemy tries hard to get the best of us. Our lives overflow with hardship and despair. But with the Apostle Paul, we are to respond, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or peril, or sword?... No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord!” (Romans 8:35-39). At the end of our tether, with the psalmist, let us look up. Let us stretch out our arms and hands and trust, trust, trust. Amen.
[1] Alec
Motyer, Journey (IVP, 2009), 47.
[2] Eric
Foley, “Notes to myself during this ongoing police investigation” (August 25,
2020), Do the Word, https://dotheword.org/2020/08/25/notes-to-myself-during-this-ongoing-police-investigation/?fbclid=IwAR3UgofEo2o2Tj1_I4bLrMVdlzMZna-_DCnrTvL4xYSgBIDJAjsh7Ya6p70
[3] Eugene
Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same
Direction (IVP, 2000) 58.
[4] Henri
Nouwen, The Essential Henri Nouwen
(Boston: Shambhala, 2009), 131-32, quoted in Max Lucado, Anxious for Nothing (Thomas Nelson, 2017), 46.
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