Psalm 123: Looking Up the Steps

• Read Psalm 123 from the ESV.
• Read my Psalm 123 poem from A New Song.

I find that I look at the ground quite a bit when I’m walking. I’m not sure when it started but I’m realizing it has become a habit. Most of the time I think I’m looking at the ground in front of me so as to not step on anything that might cause me to trip and fall. Sometimes, I find myself playing the childhood game of avoiding stepping on a crack (though with my mother having passed away, I’m not sure she would mind if that caused her back to break). Sometimes, during a rainstorm, I imagine the dark puddles of water laying in my driveway are really deep pools and I try to avoid falling into them. But these days, most of the time, I look down because I am lost in thoughts about my failures and their consequences and wonder what my life will be like now. In short, much of the time I spend looking down now is a consequence of shame.

But there are times when my eyes peer straight ahead. I forget about my shame, I forget about the possible obstacles in front of me and I just take in the beauty of nature. This is much like those times when, in a close personal relationship, I look forward — eye to eye — into a friend’s face; there is intimacy in seeking to understand the depths of the other person, or nature, as you and they try to sort out something in the present, past, or future. But there are also times when a forward-looking posture is a defensive or protective posture such as when I drive wondering who will make the first idiotic move on the road. Or it happens when I find myself in a crowd wondering who might want to accost me or inflict some sort of harm on me due to past moral failures and their real (or perceived) victim status.

But when my eyes are lifted to the heavens there is really only one reason for it: I look up to find comfort and support from my heavenly father. Just as the psalmist in Psalm 123 lifts his eyes to the throne in heaven, the only source of his comfort and mercy, I also find heaven’s throne to be the only source of comfort and mercy for me today. Sure, I can look down and bemoan the place I stand, or I can look forward and find troubles, but looking up to wait on God is the only place I will find solace and the only place where I can find meaning to get me through the rest of my life.

Looking up has taught me something about my forward gaze. I believe there are a few different types of people I can encounter who wish me ill. There are those who have a justifiable beef with me, there are those who think they do but they really don’t understand the full circumstances, and there are those who don’t have anything against me at all but are just plain nasty (to everyone). In fact, I think we all probably know people in each of those categories. What I’m learning is that it doesn’t actually matter which category the people are in, what really matters is how I respond to them.

If we take Psalm 123 and think about who the Psalmist’s enemies were at the time we will realize his enemies had been sent to him because he had stopped following God’s ways. I often wonder what Israel would have been like if the kings had never turned their backs on God. I imagine history, not merely theirs, but world history itself would have unfolded in quite a different manner. But the truth of the matter is that Israel and the kings did turn their backs on God. As a result, God sent the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Egyptians to beat the tar out of them and take them into exile. It’s not difficult to imagine that their eyes were cast down to the ground in shame as they were carted away, as well as during the time of their exile. Sure, there may have been times when they lifted their eyes, looking forward to when they would be free and their captors would be punished. But the look God was waiting for — the look that was the most important — was when they would finally lift their eyes to God seeking his forgiveness and mercy, not only for their present circumstances but for God’s ultimate judgment on them for their own sin.

Switching our gaze is a difficult change to make. It is easy to be stuck in the rut of casting our eyes down in shame or in looking forward and wishing ill upon our enemies. I think those stages are normal stages of the human response to life, but those two stages should only be the initial steps in the process. Depending on the depth of our sin and the nature of our enemies, we might be like Hester Prynne locked in those steps for a long time. But if we are to find healing there must come a time when we lift our eyes to the heavens and search for God, opening ourselves up to his severe mercy. Such mercy from God may tear at our very soul as he purges our sin. He may allow us to feel the shadow of the full weight of his judgment — for we could never hold up under the full weight of his direct judgment as poured out on Christ on the cross so many years ago. Such times are never fun for us — and it wasn’t for Christ — but they are always good as long as we don’t resist his hand and accept the work of the master healer.

While it might be natural for us to become afraid, angry, or ashamed as we look forward at those who might think ill of us, when we look up to God we will find that we become less concerned with the eyes of our antagonists and more concerned with God and our own eyes. God will help us to remove the log that needs removing so we can clearly see to the top of the steps where God’s throne full of mercy sits.