Always Growing when People are Hard
A number of years ago a friend recommended the book When People are Big and God is Small (Welch, 1997).*
In the time it took me to walk to my car in the parking lot that night, I had ordered the book. I trusted my friend’s recommendation, for her wisdom and insight, but even more, the title spoke for itself. It is a comfort to see the words anytime I grab for a book on my shelf.
People are hard.
Relationships are hard.
Both people and relationships are very good, but very good doesn’t negate the hard parts. The hard parts of people and relationships can make us feel small. And small is how the writer of Psalm 139 might have felt. Can you imagine the great and mighty King David feeling small? He who took on Goliath and spoke before King Saul with courage these words from 1 Samuel 17:37 –
And David said, “The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”
We can as people know and believe in God’s deliverance with our whole hearts and still find ourselves feeling small before people in difficult situations. This is often not a lack of belief, but a reality of living in a world that can make it pretty hard to see God at times through the muck of difficult relationships, hurtful words, and the mist of our tears.
Great King David, in Psalm 139, writes about both God’s omniscience (God knows everything.) and God’s omnipresence (God is everywhere.). He also includes a plea for there to be an active sense of these things in his own life and in the lives of those who hear his psalm:
Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
O men of blood, depart from me!
They speak against you with malicious intent;
your enemies take your name in vain.
Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
I hate them with complete hatred;
I count them my enemies. Psalm 139:19-22
Some sources I read proposed that David wrote this song at the event of his coronation as King over Israel. I could certainly see him writing as he looked ahead to the work he had been given of kingship, leading, and confronting the enemies of the land. Other sources I read seemed much more uncertain as to the event or timeline that prompted David to pick up his pen and let the Holy Spirit do the mighty work of authorship. I can see either being true. Maybe David wrote while looking forward to the task ahead, begging for God to be an ever present, ever greater part of his life and leadership as king. Or maybe David wrote about God’s intimate awareness of our hardships while running from cave to cave, as one without a home, without a kingdom, and with enemies on every side.
People seem hard in life, whether you are a beggar or a king.
Wealth doesn’t make relationships easier and poverty doesn’t rob you of the wealth that relationships bring.
When people are hard, we need the pillow of a loving God to fall upon.
When people are hard we need God to help us push forward with firm boundaries.
When people are hard we need Jesus to reveal forgiveness, in our hearts and in theirs.
When people are hard, we need God to remind us that we are hard too.
We are all sinful people, difficult people, valuable people, people in need of help and mercy and grace, even if we are His people.
The passage above from Psalm 139 has a lot of hate, but with Jesus Christ in our lives, while we hate things opposed to God and hate when others would stand against all that God stands for, we have a new commandment: Love. When people are hard, when hate wells up in us, we lean into God’s love, let God have the wrath, let His justice do its work. Our job is to love. Jesus calls this a new commandment. In Christ, it really is out with the old and in with the new:
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
John 13:34-35
This, my friends, is growth in Christ:
When people are hard, we love, whether that means boundaries, or affection, attention, or turning away from someone in order to tune into God.
Growth is complicated. Love is complicated. The Psalms are complicated. People are complicated. But God is Big when we feel small.
GROWTH QUESTIONS
What does it feel like for you when you “feel small?” What thoughts go through your head? What emotions come up from down deep?
What helps you when someone has made you feel small? What words or phrases do you use to set boundaries in kindness?
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