How Do You Not Let These Tough Days Get You Down? Here's How

Have you felt it?   Has the coronavirus been getting you down?  Hmm, that’s not really a good question is it?   How could it not get you down?  

Our nation has been number one for all sorts of things.  But now we’re number one for something heartbreaking.  No nation has as many cases of this virus or as many deaths as we do.     And that hurts, especially as other nations have done better, have flattened the curve.   It’s like our nation used to be the top of the class, and now it feels like we’re back with the slow kids, at least with this.

And I’m not even talking about all the folks who have lost jobs or businesses or the horrible moments, where we’ve seen our nation is not nearly as fair as it should be.   So, with all that, how could you not be at least a little down?  

You don’t need an answer to that question.  But you do need, we all need, an answer to this one.  How do you not get dragged down by the news of these days?  How do you not get caught up in it?   How do you instead find a way to rise above it, to, in the midst of the dark clouds, find the blue skies that still lie above?  Is that even possible?  Yes, it is. And in these words, God shows you the way.   So, let’s listen and hear what God has to say.

Psalm 73

How do you not let the challenges of these Covid times bring you down?   How do you not get captured by all the not so good news of these days?   How do you get beyond the clouds enough to at least get a glimpse of the blue skies that lie above?  In these words, God tells you.   God says.  First you recognize your grief.  Then in your grief, you look to the only perspective that ultimately matters. 

When I first looked at this psalm, I didn’t see it.  I didn’t see the grief.  Yes, the writer of this psalm, the musician Asaph, is angry and a bit jealous too.   But why is he angry?  He’s grieving the gap.    He’s grieving the gap between the world as it is, and the world as it should be.  

And in reality, every time you grieve, you are grieving a gap.   God has given human beings an extraordinary insight.   No other creature, at least as far as we know, sees this.   Human beings see the gaps.   We don’t just see the world as it is.   We see the world as God intended it to be.  

A book I read to my son has a section on the strange creatures of the ocean deeps.   And they are strange, wondrously so.  But in one way most of them, in all their different shapes and sizes, have one thing in common.  They can’t see.   But don’t feel too bad for them.  They literally don’t know what they’re missing.  They’ve never lived anywhere but in this deep darkness.  They have no idea what light truly looks like or what wondrous thing light enables you to see.

And years ago, the brilliant Christian writer, C.S. Lewis used a similar observation to point out that human beings see what other creatures seemingly don’t.  They see the dark because they have a sense of the light.  Why do you get angry when you see injustice?   You get angry because inside you know, you see what justice truly is?  Why do you mourn the death of those you love or even the death of someone you didn’t know?   You see. Death isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.  In other words, you see the dark only because you know the light.  You see what the world should be, even when no one has truly seen that at least this side of heaven.    And your anger, your grief is simply you seeing that tragic gap.

And in these days of Covid when you get down, you aren’t just having a bad day.  You are grieving.  You are grieving the gaps.   You are grieving a world where it has become no longer safe to hug or even offer a high five.   You are grieving how this virus hasn’t brought our nation closer together but has divided us more, a key reason why our numbers have gone up.  You are grieving how this virus has exposed gaps in fairness that make it more deadly for poor folks and people of color.  And the list could go on.   And this grieving is good.   You need to grieve.  We need to grieve.  We have things that we have lost, and those losses need to be grieved.   

But in this psalm, the writer Asaph, is grieving too, yes.   He is grieving a world in which, as he puts it, the wicked rich get richer, and the virtuous poor (like himself) get poorer.   Yet, even as he mourns the gap, he right at the beginning warns you.  He tells you his grief had fallen into a dark place, into a place of envy and rage.   And when you fall into that place, you stop seeing the gaps or at least you stop seeing them clearly.  Instead you see yourself on one side of the gap, and all those who enrage you on the other.    And that way of seeing will wreck you.  It will cause as the psalmist puts it, your feet to stumble, your steps to slip.  

Years ago, a preacher named Nicky Gumbel was talking about how most days he took a bike to get to the church he led in London.  And as he rode, every now and then, a car would veer into the bike lane to move forward a little faster.   And Nicky would think.  “What a horrible person!  Doesn’t he know the rules?  His recklessness could hurt someone.”  But then a day would come when he’d be running late, and he’d take his car.   And the traffic would get heavy, and what would he do?  He’d veer into the bike lane.  But he’d tell himself.  “I’m heading to a meeting where I’m going to help people. I’m doing good not like those other folks.”  But then he realized the truth of his double standard, how he had put himself on the “good” side of the gap, so to speak. 

And in this psalm, Asaph does just that.  Do you notice how every rich person is sound and sleek, how they’re all violent and speak with malice, how they’re all always at ease?   Now Asaph might have been largely right.   A lot of wicked rich were getting away with oppression and evil.   But anytime, someone uses words about folks like always and every, every time you generalize like that, you’re not seeing things clearly.  

For do you notice what Asaph says about himself?  “All in vain I have kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.”  Now, again, I’m sure Asaph was a good guy, but that good?  No one is that good.   In fact, his own words betray his pettiness.   The way he talks about God, it’s clear.  He expects God to be his magical health and wealth machine.  I put in a few coins of goodness and virtue, and God gives me a nice life.   But is that any way to view anyone, as someone you manipulate for your own benefit?  Yet Asaph tells you, he views God just that way. 

And so yes, you need to grieve the gaps, but you need to see them clearly.   None of us live completely on the good side of the gap.   For example, it drives me nuts when people rant about not wearing a mask.  Yet, have I always worn a mask when I should have?   If I’m honest, no, I haven’t.   A few times, I’ve dropped the mask when it would have been wiser, and safer for those around me to keep it on.    I don’t live completely on that side of the gap either.   

But when Asaph does change his tune, when he does begin to see more clearly, it can see like it doesn’t. When he talks about the coming demise of the rich, about their fall to ruin, it can seem like he’s gloating.  But he isn’t gloating.  He is grieving the gap.  He is grieving what could have been, the life they could have had versus the life they do.  He is no longer full of rage.  Instead he is full of pity.  You might have heard that famous phrase.   “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle.”   People like to attribute it to an ancient Greek philosopher.   But actually, aScottish pastor John Watson first said it about 150 years ago, except he didn’t say Be kind.  Instead he said, Be pitiful, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”   Now today that word doesn’t have the same meaning it did in Watson’s day.  When Watson said, “Be pitiful” he meant it literally.  He meant.  Be full of pity.   And when you see the gaps that is good advice.

When I see people rant about masks or acts as if Covid is some made up thing, I could get angry.  But anger doesn’t help, and it puts me on the other side of the gap as someone who knows better.  Instead, I see that behind the rant lies fear, how “they are swept away by terrors.”  And who doesn’t have fears?  I may not have those fears, but when it comes to this virus, I have fears of my own I need to fight.  And seeing that fear fills me with pity, with compassion.  I understand that we’re both dealing with a scary thing.  And yes, their reaction hurts rather than helps, but they are fighting a battle too, even if they are fighting it in the wrong way. 

But what fills Asaph with pity?  What changes his mind?   He goes to the sanctuary.  Now, seeing that, you can get the wrong idea.   You can imagine this sanctuary with its beautiful windows and clean pews.  And the temple Asaph saw did have extraordinary beauty.  But it had something else.  It had blood.   In that sanctuary, they did one thing above all. They sacrificed animals.   And God told the nation of Israel to do those sacrifices for one crucial reason.  God wanted them to remember that the gaps in their lives came at a terrible cost, that these animals were taking the hit for gaps they themselves had made.  And when Asaph saw that, he saw the truth.   He didn’t live on the other side of the gap from these wicked rich.  No, they lived on the wrong side together.   They both needed God’s forgiveness, God’s love.  They both needed God to cross the gap. 

And in that bloody mess, God was pointing to the day when God would cross the gap in the most radical way possible.  God would become the lamb on the altar, the sacrifice that crossed the gap forever.   But in both places, God was saying the same thing.  I will do whatever it takes to heal the gaps, to return you and me and all of creation to a world as it should be, a world of sharing and community, a world of love and justice, a world where God wipes away every tear.  And in Jesus, God did it finally and forever.  God did do whatever it took to bring you across the gap, to bring you home.  And why?  Because God loves you.  God loves you no matter what.

And that’s where the change came.   Asaph stopped looking at God’s hand, looking at what God could give him.  No Asaph started looking at God’s face, this God who loved him, who loved him in his best moments, and in his ugliest moments of envy and self-righteousness.   And he realized in the face of that love, he already had all he could ever dream.  Or as he put it. “Whom have I in heaven but you?  And there is nothing on earth that I desire other than you.”  

And when you know that, when you see God’s face of love, when you have that perspective. It changes everything.   You know however dark the clouds become they are not the ultimate truth of your situation.  Above those clouds always you will find the blue sky, the love.  To quote the poem ofJohn Magee, a young pilot, a child of missionaries, who died tragically at age 19, you will find:  “You’ve slipped the surly bonds of earth….and you’ve put out your hand and touched the face of God.”  And in that touch, you will realize.  Even in the darkest of days, the light of that love always shines.  And it has crossed every gap, even death itself.   And no darkness, no darkness will ever overcome it.