GLADDEN MY SOUL...

Incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me,
    for I am poor and needy.
² Preserve my life, for I am godly;
    save your servant, who trusts in you—you are my God.
³ Be gracious to me, O Lord,
    for to you do I cry all the day.
⁴ Gladden the soul of your servant,
    for to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.
⁵ For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,
    abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.   Psalm 86:1-5

I am not a sad person.  What I mean is, I have a generally optimistic, positive outlook on life.  Sad things happen but I don’t tend to dwell on them.  I know I’ve had some really difficult things happen in my life.  I have experienced great loss.  I have had people betray me and turn against me.  I have been dealt with unfairly.  And I have had times of real struggle.  But God made me in such a way that none of these things have weighed heavily on my spirit over a long period of time.  Some people might say (and have said) that it is because I am so shallow; that I don’t reflect enough on the seriousness of these things.  Maybe they are right.  I don’t know.

The other day I was praying through Psalm 86 and meditating on it.  (I’m pretty shallow so my meditations aren’t very deep!)  The thought that really struck me is verse 4, “Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.”  I don’t know what David was experiencing when he wrote this psalm.  I can see that he was burdened and downhearted.  I think he was more than just “sad.”  It seems deeper that mere sadness to me.  His soul needs to be lifted up.  So what does he do?  He turns to God.  He calls out to God to gladden his soul.  He bares his heart to God. 

On the surface it seems like someone might say, “Oh, I see.  David was really down so he prayed about it.”  As I reflected on the passage it occurred to me that David was doing something far more important than simply “praying about it.”  I began to think about how people tend to deal with deep sorrow and heavy burdens when the sadness seems to touch even their very souls.  Very often we seek to change our circumstances.  In other words, go do something fun, get some really good friends to spend time with, anything to change the circumstances in which we find ourselves so very sad.  I think David knew that such things would not be able to change the burden on his soul.  There is a spiritual aspect to such deep sorrow and it must be dealt with on a spiritual level.  Only God can touch our souls no matter what the romantics write.  So he turns to the One who can gladden his soul.  My friends can identify with my sad; they can empathize with me; they can weep with me; they can try to comfort me.  But they cannot touch my soul like God can.

So we turn to God to gladden us.  David says in verse 5 that God is “good and forgiving abounding in steadfast love…”  Ah, it begins to become clear!  What my soul needs is goodness because my sorrow may be caused by evil.  I need forgiveness because my sad could be the result of sin in my life.  I need steadfast love because human love can be shallow and fickle.  God is what my soul needs!  I need God himself and all that he is!  It is God who gladdens the soul!