How to pray when you’re down – Advent Psalm of Thanksgiving, Part 2

The ancient Hebrews often uses parallel structures in their writing, and we see it throughout the Hebrew Bible, which we call the Old Testament.  It seems that Psalm 30 was written with one of those structures.  Here’s the way they work.  The opening matches the closing.  The second main point matches the second to last main point.  The third point matches the third to last main point, and there is an unmatched center point.  In today’s post, and in the next few posts, let’s try to discover the structure in Psalm 30.  It will help to have a Bible open to Psalm 30. 

Look at verse 1. David writes what is essentially a promise to praise God, “I will exalt you”.  Why? Because God has lifted him out of the depths, and God has not let his enemies rejoice over him.

If this psalm was written with an intentional structure, this is the beginning point that should have a match in the closing.  That closing should include a promise to praise and a mention of rejoicing or joy.  Does the closing have that?

Look at verse 11 and 12, the closing verses.  David writes in verse 12 “Lord my God, I will praise you forever.”  That is clearly a promise to praise God.  And in verse 11 he mentions joy. 

It’s a match!  Verse 1 matched with Verses 11-12 are the first main point of Psalm 30.  David promises to praise God, because David was in the depths of despair and had enemies, and God intervened.  It was not the enemies who rejoiced, it was David himself, because God rescued him.  Our God loves to rescue us. 

In the past few weeks of Advent, we have learned psalms of lament and confession.  The reality is that we are people who experienced what David calls The Depths.  This is basically a synonym for what we call The Dumps. Or The Grumps.  Or The Blues.

When we are in The Depths, we are wailing, we are putting on sackcloth.  Think of a burlap bag.  Very rough cloth that is used as a sack for carrying things.  Burlap is itchy, scratchy, and uncomfortable.  It is not stylish, it is unattractive.  In David’s culture people would wear sackcloth, burlap, when they were in The Depths. Their outward clothing told everyone around them that the person was in The Depths, what they were feeling inwardly.  Darkness, depression, despair, mourning.  They were down. 

But David makes a promise to God that a new day has dawned.  A day for thanking God, praising God, because God brought him up out of The Depths.  The image this word evokes is that of drawing water out of a well.  David is way down in the depths, but God has drawn him up.  He mentions a specific situation that had him in the depths.  His enemies gloating over him. 

When your enemies gloat, it makes you feel so small.  Even if it is something unimportant.  Like their NFL team beat your team.  Or when someone says, “I told you so.”  Their gloating hits you deep inside, and you wonder about your worth, your value.  You can take it hard.  But David says he is praising God because God has lifted him up from the Depths.

When we connect that with the matching point in verses 11-12, now David is dancing!  I recently heard a story about someone’s aging parents. Their mother is her late 80s, and her dad just turned 90, and they go dancing.  She said that it is 1950s kind of dancing, and the love it, it keeps them in shape.  There is something special about dancing.  We let ourselves be free, experiencing joy, and hope.  David said that when God pulled him out of the depths, it made him feel like dancing. 

Photo by christopher lemercier on Unsplash