Waiting for the shoe to drop?

 

READ Psalm 91–95

In the late 19th and early 20th century, apartments in New York were built with bedrooms on top of one another. It was common to hear your upstairs neighbor take off a shoe, drop it, and then repeat the action. This became shorthand for waiting for something you knew was coming. These days, a pessimist might use this phrase to predict doom and gloom yet an optimist is cheerfully looking forward to another good day.

Sometimes I am both. Because we are not yet in heaven, and because Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble” I expect disasters. However, when I read the psalms and think about the way God takes care of me, I wake up singing praises to God. this morning was like that and these five psalms filled me with the attitude that today will be a good day . . .

Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place— the Most High, who is my refuge— no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent . . . . Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name. When he calls to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation. (Psalm 91:9–16)

Are these the words of a Pollyanna who seemingly cannot see the troubles in the world, one of those positive optimists that never see or say a bad word? I don’t think so. When my faith is focused on God, even the trials come out of the shadows because He reveals what He is doing and how it means positive changes in my life:

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. (Romans 8:28–29)

The psalmists focused on those positives. They wrote of life in optimism, encouraging those whose faith is in Christ to look forward to good days — using words like this:

The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green, to declare that the Lord is upright; he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him. (Psalm 92:12–15)

Each time I read the above verses, I’m blessed, something like the blessing of hearing about a person over 100 who is running daily or is still making quilts. Only the Lord’s blessing is not “I hope I can be like that” but more like “This is Almighty God making a promise!”

Does the joy continue when God chastens me for sin? or when troubles come that are not my doing? It can, depending on my perspective and how I see the hand of God in it:

Blessed is the man whom you discipline, O Lord, and whom you teach out of your law, to give him rest from days of trouble, until a pit is dug for the wicked. For the Lord will not forsake his people; he will not abandon his heritage; for justice will return to the righteous, and all the upright in heart will follow it . . . . When I thought, “My foot slips,” your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up. When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul. (94:12–19)

Sadly, lack of praise means a hard heart and lack of peace. It was true in the OT and still is:

Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. For forty years I loathed that generation and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways.” Therefore I swore in my wrath, “They shall not enter my rest.” (95:6–11)

Instead of being a restless person who is always ‘waiting for the other shoe to drop’ God wants me to do what the psalmist does — and invite others to praise Him with me: “Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.” (95:1–3)