Bazaar United Methodist Church

Bazaar, Kansas

Psalm 4

Friendship with God

Answer me when I call, O God of my right!
You gave me room when I was in distress.
Be gracious to me, and hear my prayer.

How long, you people, shall my honor suffer shame?
How long will you love vain words, and seek after lies?
But know that the Lord has set apart the faithful for himself;
the LORD hears when I call to him.

When you are disturbed, do not sin;
ponder it on your beds, and be silent.
Offer right sacrifices,
and put your trust in the LORD.

There are many who say, "O that we might see some good!
Let the light of your face shine on us, O LORD!"
You have put gladness in my heart
more than when their grain and wine abound.

I will both lie down and sleep in peace;
for you alone, O LORD, make me lie down in safety. Psalm 4 NRSV

Unlike some Christians who prefer to ignore the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible entirely, I love the psalms and stories of the Old Testament. As I was reading through the lectionary passages for today, it was the psalm more than any other that drew me. And I think it is because of its personal nature.

The psalmist has conceived of friendship with God; and plunges into prayer on the basis of that friendship. Answer me when I call, O God of my right! Notice that this is not a pleasant request, it is not a person who is pleading with God; this is a demand from one who is certain he will get that which he requires.

Have you ever been so bold, so brazen with God, to so presume upon your relationship as to demand that God respond to you? No? Is that because you are afraid God wouldn't respond or that God would zap you for being so outrageous? Is it because you don't trust God that far or because you're not close enough to God to make a demand even if you're desperate? Is God your friend or are you still afraid of God?

Clearly the psalmist is not afraid of God. Answer me when I call, O God of my right! You gave me room when I was in distress. Be gracious to me, and hear my prayer. The psalmist has clearly known God's care during times of past distress, when God provided "room," breathing space, and an enlarged heart and understanding. And the psalmist knows from past experience that God will see him through tough times ahead as well.

Having room reminds me of the prayer of Jabez. Do you remember the prayer of Jabez? It was a very popular scriptural prayer a few years ago taken from 1 Chronicles 4:10. Jabez prays, "Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!" So God granted him what he requested. (Geneva Bible)

Now Jabez was actually asking for territory in terms of land. When I pray the Jabez' prayer, I mean either that I want the territory of my heart to be enlarged to encompass the world, including my enemies or that I want the territory of God's spiritual influence through me to be enlarged. Sometimes that enlargement can cause as much distress as it relieves. The psalmist says You gave me room when I was in distress. But sometimes the giving of space is exactly what places us in distress so some of the translations say something more like, "relieve me in my distress" rather than You gave me room when I was in distress.

Be gracious to me, and hear my prayer. Three lines, three imperatives. Answer me, be gracious to me, hear my prayer. The psalmist is either a friend of God or totally delusional. In these first lines, this first verse, the psalmist makes it clear, friendship with God is not only possible, it is expected. And friends can demand things from one another periodically. We do it all the time. We just don't notice it because we couch it in polite terms. Shut that door, will you. Please give that to me. It's not really a request, it's a demand with "please" attached to be polite. Imperative sentences are a normal part of our language. Larry often gets this one when we hang up the phone at night, "Sleep well, dream of me." We both laugh and say good night. Imperatives are not necessarily as harsh as we tend to make them when we are evaluating them critically. They are simply a way we, as friends and lovers communicate with one another.

Open and honest friendship with God requires of us that same communication. It must be truthful. Many of us try to hide things from God and others. I always figure God knows everything anyway so I talk to him about all of it. You people, on the other hand, I don't trust so much, I may not be willing to share just everything with you. And you very well may not want to hear it. But too many seem to think they have to "clean themselves up" to go before God. They try talking in a different language, now if that's the language you learned for prayer and you're really comfortable with it, that's fine, but if it's not, and you're working to use Thee's and Thou's, give it up and pray like you're talking to your best friend because that is who God wants to be for you.

If our Friendship with God breaks down, the fault does not rest with [God], but with us. We have refused because of our pride or our stubbornness or even our sin to return the friendship. God cannot be that loving person who shares with us the most intimate purposes of his heart and seeks to draw from us our best qualities if we are not willing to seek his friendship. When God calls us friends, he wants us to respond and be his friend. Friendship is two-sided, as we all know so well. We cannot force a person to be our friend. God is gracious, loving, and respectful of our rights. He does not force himself upon us.

We must be willing to share all of who we are with God, the good and the bad to have friendship with God. We must be willing to admit to our brokenness, share our hurts, bare our deepest wounds so that God can heal them from the inside. My niece once had a pyloric cyst. That is a cyst on the tailbone. It was very painful to sit down. They did surgery to open and drain the cyst and then they closed it back up. Only everything had apparently not drained because in a few days she was in excruciating pain and had to go back to the doctor. Not only had the cyst returned but now it was badly infected. So they opened it up again and this time they did not close the incision. They packed it and twice each day she had to have someone remove the packing and replace it. Not an easy thing to arrange when you are living in a foreign country, like Finland. But it was imperative that it heal from the inside out. That is what God does for us when we allow it. He heals us from the inside out. But first we have to trust him with our friendship.

The psalmist trusts implicitly that God knows he is faithful. He knows God will hear his prayer. While others may only be able to celebrate when the harvest is plentiful, the LORD has placed a greater gladness than that in the heart of the psalmist who knows God as friend whether grain and wine abound or not.

The psalmist then closes with these most personal words: I will both lie down and sleep in peace; for you alone, O LORD, make me lie down in safety. Here we have the picture of a person with a personal relationship with God, friendship with God; and the psalm was written hundreds of years before Christ Jesus. Too often we seem to think of God as distant, that only Christ comes close. But the psalmist knew better. We, too, should know better.

Part of friendship is allowing our friends to help us. Nothing is more frustrating than wanting to help a friend when he refuses to accept our help. Ted Husing was a popular and successful radio announcer in the 50's. Suddenly in 1956 his voice was heard no more. Brain surgery left him blind, paralyzed, and unable to speak. He became very bitter in his suffering. He refused to see anyone except his mother, his wife, and his daughter. He gave strict orders that no one should be told where he was hospitalized. But, of course, word got out, and some of his friends went to see him. They were told they were not wanted, but they kept trying. Husing could not understand their patience, their stubbornness. Later he finally agreed to go with a friend to a baseball game. He longed to hear again the crack of a bat against a ball and smell the ballpark with all of its various odors. There his friend whispered to him, "Ted, you are going to make it with the help of God." Up to that point Ted Husing had been bitter toward God. Suddenly he saw his mistake. He repented. Loyal friends and thousands of letters and prayers from all over the country brought him back to God and the simple trusting faith of his childhood. He recovered much of his lost health. But he also learned through all of his troubles that a person needs his friends. We are not independent of them. He later wrote: "I am grateful when I consider that through the goodness of undeserved friends, God became a loving reality for me."

God IS a loving reality. We just have to believe long enough to accept God's love and allow God to become our friend. Trust in the LORD with all your heart says the Proverb, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths. (Proverbs 3:5-6 Geneva Bible) May our paths be directed, because we have given our hearts up in trust to the Lord. Amen.