“Am I glad today?” I wondered as I read Psalm 92 this morning.
For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work;
at the works of your hands I sing for joy. Psalm 92:4
Is my heart singing for joy? If not, why not? Is it because I’m not working at it enough? Because I’m not trying to be glad and joyful? Is it because I’m being lazy and neglectful at trying to be glad in all things, even the crumby things? Is it because I need to exert more of my own will-power to choose to be glad, even though I don’t feel it?
Perhaps not. I’ve gone down that road lots of times, the road of constantly examining myself and my feelings and trying to work harder on myself. Trying to fix myself and clean up myself for the Lord and then reevaluate myself and then keep trying and trying and trying for him. And it’s exhausting and bitter and I seem to take as many steps back as I do forward.
For you, O Lord, have made me glad…
For you, it says. It begins with the Lord. How often, I wonder, have I thought and tried a different wording:
“I will make myself glad for you, O Lord.”
But that’s not what is says, is it? And it isn’t what the Gospel says. The good news isn’t what we must do for God. It’s what God has done for us.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even while we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ– by grace you have been saved– and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus Ephesians 2:4-6
The Christian message is good news because it is not about us cleaning ourselves up. It is about God making us new. “But God… made us alive.” It is God’s work from start to finish. That is the Gospel. That is why it isn’t more impossibly hard and bitter news, but good news.
The Gospel is good news because it is not about us cleaning ourselves up. It is about God making us new.
So, experiencing gladness and joy doesn’t start with me and it isn’t about me making myself something. What it is about is God. It is God who makes us glad. It is the works of God’s hands that fill us with joy– not our own. How quickly I am to forget that; to superimpose myself first and God second– even in a quest to please him.
So, what then? If I find myself today not singing for joy, not glad in my heart, then what? What’s the problem? If the answer is not digging deeper into myself, gritting my teeth and willing myself by my own powers to be glad and joyful, then what other options are left? Is the life of a Christian just not all that glad or joyful?
For you, O Lord, have made me glad…
experiencing gladness and joy is a matter of where our attention is fixed.
Once again, where does our gladness come from in Psalm 92? It comes from the Lord by his work. He has made us glad. So then, where should we look for it? The writer of this Psalm models it for us. The psalmist experiences gladness, not by looking at himself but, by looking at the Lord. He doesn’t sing for joy at the works of his own hands, he sings for joy at the works of God’s hands. God’s glory revealed to him makes him glad. Experiencing gladness and joy is a matter of where our attention is fixed.
Christian gladness and joy is not an empty optimism. It is not about trying to look at a glass as half full, rather than half empty. Singing for joy comes when our attentions are turned from ourselves and what we’re doing and how we’re feeling and what we’ve accomplished, and turned instead onto our Lord Christ Jesus. For you, O Lord…
“Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.” – C. S. Lewis
When we turn our attention onto Jesus we never find a glass half empty or half full. It’s more like, instead of finding a glass at all, we find an unstoppable, rushing river. There’s no need for empty optimism or weary pep talks to ourselves when we really look at the Lord; when we let the Holy Spirit living in each of us turn our attention onto Jesus. He does the work for us and in us (Phil 2:13), from start to finish, because he is both the author and the perfecter of our faith (Heb 12:2).
In him, if we look, we find our glorious Maker, the one true and Almighty God, the King of all kings and Lord of all lords, our Loving Father, our Refuge and our Strength, the Prince of Peace, our Brother and Friend, the Keeper of our inheritance, the Saviour of souls, our Healer and Redeemer, our Counselor and Provider and Protecter, our Home and our very Life, and that’s just a taste of who he is and all he has done.
There is more than enough there– in him– to make even the most heavy heart glad and the most suffering soul sing for joy
There is more than enough there– in him– to make even the most heavy heart glad and the most suffering soul sing for joy. This is why we pray and why we worship together and why we absorb Scripture; that we would look to Him and him alone and allow his Holy Spirit to open the eyes of our hearts.
So, turn the attentions of your mind and your heart and your soul onto the Lord, and find even as you do, that with joy and gladness he changes you.
For you, O Lord, have made me glad!
