Sometimes, I give up too easily, too quickly. Life is difficult and filled with obstacles, and sometimes I feel overwhelmed before I’ve even given things a real effort.
I have a book project I’ve been chipping away at for years. I keep fiddling with it because I know that once I’m done with the writing I’ll have to get on with the publishing. And there’s something inside of me that is so afraid it’ll never get published that I keep avoiding the next step. I can’t be rejected if I never submit it.
There are other times where I’ve put myself out there in a big way and come up short. Raising support, moving to Bend, and attempting to launch a new church took a lot of effort and put my reputation on the line. When we closed down The Table Church after a bit more than three years, I had to acknowledge failure and all of the confusion that comes with it.
But sometimes (always?) failure is necessary for future success. In 2005, Steve Jobs gave the commencement speech at Stanford University. In it, he tells the story of being fired from Apple Computers, the company he’d founded and given his life to. It was the most painful thing he’d ever experienced and yet it turned out to be the catalyst for the most important things he’d do for the rest of his too-short life. And as I look at my church planting stumble with The Table, I see God’s work in me in numerous ways.
Psalm 60 is a study in contrasts. It has the longest heading of all the Psalms and the heading seems to be in jarring contrast to what is written in the actual psalm itself. The heading is about success while the psalm is about failure.
Here’s the heading:
For the director of music. To the tune of “The Lily of the Covenant.” A miktam of David. For teaching. When he fought Aram Naharaim and Aram Zobah, and when Joab returned and struck down twelve thousand Edomites in the Valley of Salt.
First of all, I find it odd that the heading refers to the psalm as “for teaching” when it’s not a wisdom psalm at all. It’s a prayer, not a proverb. And it’s a prayer that it definitely on the whiny side. How does that teach?
The heading was added well after the psalm was written. The psalm was a prayer of frustration and theological confusion in the face of failure. The heading was added after that failure had been dramatically turned into an undeniable success. The prayer had become a proverb, for the initial readers of the psalm all knew of these historical successes.
The teaching here is this: We are quick to give up on the God who doesn’t give up on us.
Psalm 60 begins with bold accusations against God. The first three verses are scathing. They end with accusing God of getting the nation falling-down drunk.
You have rejected us, God, and burst upon us;
you have been angry — now restore us!
You have shaken the land and torn it open;
mend its fractures, for it is quaking.
You have shown your people desperate times;
you have given us wine that makes us stagger (Ps. 60:1-3).
All of this is laid on God. No personal or communal responsibility is taken. God is the one who has caused national turmoil because of his angry rejection. This is in contrast to elsewhere in the Scriptures, where personal sins and community responsibility are blamed for current suffering.
This finger-pointing is followed by an ambiguous verse which most likely refers to God raising a flag of retreat to a place of safety beyond the reach of enemy archers, not a flag of attack as the NIV’s rendering below suggests.
But for those who fear you, you have raised a banner
to be unfurled against the bow (Ps. 60:4).
Things aren’t good. A heroic effort by God is necessary for any rescue to succeed.
So, David ducks back into history, to the time when Yahweh led the Hebrew armies into the Promised Land. The Valley of Sukkoth is on the east side of the Jordan River and Shechem is on the west side, bringing to mind the entrance into the land (see Joshua 4-5).
It is God who parcels out and measures off the land. It all belongs to God, not to us. Our presence in our land, our homes, our jobs represents his rule, not our ownership, not our expertise, not our strength or cunning.
Save us and help us with your right hand,
that those you love may be delivered.
God has spoken from his sanctuary:
“In triumph I will parcel out Shechem
and measure off the Valley of Sukkoth (Ps. 60:5-6).
Not only that, but we ourselves don’t belong to ourselves. We belong to God.
And on it continues. Not only do we belong to God, so too do our enemies. “My” and “mine” dominate these verses. Every bit of everything belongs to God. We belong to God. They belong to God. Every single one of us.
“Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine;
Ephraim is my helmet,
Judah is my scepter.
Moab is my washbasin,
on Edom I toss my sandal;
over Philistia I shout in triumph” (Ps. 60:7-8).
Moab. Edom. Philistia. Hmm. Where else do these three get mentioned together?
… all the nations he had subdued: Edom and Moab, the Ammonites and the Philistines, and Amalek (2 Sam. 8:11-12).
Hmm. They’re listed among the nations David subdued — as in, defeated.
The next verse in Ps. 60 ties right in to 2 Sam. 8 as well:
Who will bring me to the fortified city?
Who will lead me to Edom? (Ps. 60:9)
He put garrisons throughout Edom, and all the Edomites became subject to David. The Lord gave David victory wherever he went (2 Sam. 8:14).
Those fortified cities in Edom eventually become David’s fortified cities, garrisoned with his soldiers and extending his rule over the Edomites.
And those 12,000 Edomites struck down by Joab in the Valley of Salt referred to in the heading for Ps. 60, they’re in 2 Sam. 8 as well.
And David became famous after he returned from striking down eighteen thousand Edomites in the Valley of Salt (2 Sam. 8:13).
There are different possible explanations for the difference in numbers. The most satisfying being that Joab’s soldiers killed 12,000 while David’s other generals were responsible for killing the other 6,000 Edomites.
And the fighting against Aram Naharim and Aram Zobah also referred to in the heading? Yep. They’re mentioned in 2 Sam. 8 as well.
Psalm 60 seems to be David’s fear coming out in angry prayer before the events of 2 Sam. 8 took place. All of his inner turmoil, all of his dread, all of his accusations against God — which he prays — are completely turned on their head by God.
God hadn’t rejected. God hadn’t refused to go out with their armies. Even though that’s what David accuses God of doing in Ps. 60:10.
The goal of this prayer is for David to voice his fear and the anger that comes from a sense of a loss of control.
God can handle the accusatory tone in our voices when we bring our fear and anger to him. In fact, he prefers that we bring them to him. If we don’t, we’ll slam them against the other people in our lives. And God is far more resilient than our loved ones.
The other goal of this prayer is for David to voice the Kingship of God. He did so when he referred to the land being parceled out by God, the tribes belonging to God, and even the enemies being under the sway of God. And he does so again as he closes out the psalm’s praying.
Give us aid against the enemy,
for human help is worthless.
With God we will gain the victory,
and he will trample down our enemies (Ps. 60:11-12).
Human help is generally my first go-to. But David concludes by seeing it as weak and tattered as it really is. Worthless. Unsubstantial. Shaky at best. Real victory will only come from God.
With 2 Sam. 8 firmly in mind, Psalm 60 sounds silly in its anxiety. But that’s how I am in my fears.
I wring my hands, imagining the worst. My stomach gets tied up in knots of tension. I mutter to myself.
But what David does is pray. He doesn’t hold it in. He doesn’t lash out at his advisors. He doesn’t grump around the house.
And because he prays, he changes. And God takes what looks like sure failure and turns it into an undeniable success.