Articles
Let the Bones You have Crushed Rejoice. Psalm 51: 8b
Barbara L. Klika, MSW, Undershepherd, Life Coach
June 2014
Written for Wisconsin Christian Newspaper
When was the last time you were cheerful when you were injured? I doubt it is common. Yet in this Psalm by King David, he recounted a time when he was recovering from “crushed” or “broken” bones and asked that our Father allow them to rejoice. What’s more, the psalm indicates that our God is the one who crushed his bones. I found this difficult to reconcile with a God who has also promised that His plans for us are for good and not for evil.
This verse falls right between two more widely known verses. One refers to His ability to wash us white as snow. The other is part of the liturgy I grew up with in the Lutheran church: Create a clean heart within me and renew a right spirit within me. I don’t remember noticing this one in the middle!
Why would God want to crush us?
Aren’t we supposed to be growing in capability and maturity so that we can handle most things, so that we don’t have to go to Him for every little thing, but spare Him our petty problems that we can handle ourselves? Shouldn’t we free ourselves in order to be in a position to serve Him?
It began to make more sense when I learned that “bones” is often used as a Scriptural metaphor for “strength” or “substance of being.” Following that, I found that the “crushing” or “brokenness” is noted in both the Outline of Biblical usage and the Gesenius Lexicon as also referring to “being contrite.”
Ah, now I see a picture of the need for my own strength or self-sufficiency to be broken down, crushed in contrition. Yes, we are to mature as adults who are able to practice good self-care and care for other and we never outgrow our need for our Father, the Almighty, the El Shaddai.
It is pleasing to Him that we become more dependent on Him and interdependent with His people rather than looking to our own strength or ability to figure things out.
He can only even begin to be understood in the context of being relational! Even the One God is plural and in eternal relationship with Himself, inviting us to enter in! Oh, how irritating and unattractive this process can be! Isn’t this why people deride Believers? You poor pathetic little thing who can’t do anything without seeking that unseen anonymous god in the sky! Why would any mature person want to be like that?
While we are not to go to the point of viewing this physical reality as bad while only spiritual things are good, we are to realize that this temporal place is “on the road” to our eternity. It is our created testing and training ground. He designed human beings to be able to join Him in His creation to the extent that life begets life but this world is not the most important thing! Far more than broken hopes, relationships, or bodies broken through illness or injury, our Abba is interested in our eternity! The condition of our soul.
Ever since Adam and Eve rejected His direction to them, mankind has been faced with the desire to be autonomous or independent of God. It is part of our human—fallen—nature to desire such independence of Him. A few months ago, I was deeply impressed with the beauty and the simplicity of what He had intended for us.
Placed into a world of beauty and harmony, our entire purpose was to be in relationship with Him.
When mankind rejected this vision, believing the insinuation that God was “holding out” on us from being like Him, all the rest of what we have come to believe has importance in life was set into motion. All of our efforts to organize, to achieve, to make a name for ourselves…all of these things are of the world system, and I believe that He set the pattern from the very beginning in the first Garden. He set before the first man and woman the two trees: the Tree of Life (His way) and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Our way). This second tree is not directly mentioned in the word again, but the effects of it are seen all the way to the end of Revelation. (Some call it the Babylon system.) Those who exchange our human/temporal focus for His focus will have His eyes to see and ears to hear and will be able to return back to the Garden and His Tree of life!
All of our striving that leads to our own concept of success in the world
and even among believers will not lead to His rest.
It is this striving that needs to be crushed.
When this reality comes into focus, it causes quite a shift! It must be a personal realization and cannot just be given to another on the proverbial silver platter. In His grace, He has provided shepherds with His heart who will point the way to His sheep who will recognize His voice in them.
I believe that He knew this polarization of the view of success would happen and allowed it all as part of our testing and training. Would we prefer to believe the evidence of our eyes and ears alone, denying Him and the Truth found in His Written and Living Word, Messiah Yeshua? Would we realize that our strength, no matter how great a name we make for ourselves, is heading the wrong way?
In His economy, the way up is down. The more we come to grips with the truth of our limitations, the limits of our so-called strength and self-sufficiency, the more we experience the crushing of that rebellious spirit. As He works in the lives of those who seek Him, as the good Parent that He is, he allows and engineers circumstances for our good. Our good occurs when we yield ourselves more and more fully to His Hand. Then we may ask Him to show us the joy and gladness that comes with the rest He intended.
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You will find more articles on many aspects of walking out our spiritual and personal growth as we move on toward maturity in Messiah at our website, www.Set-Apart-Ministries.org; also found as www.PrepareMessiahsBride.org
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