Psalm 123 - Chambers, Oswald
This psalm represents the inner biography of faith. It is not easy to have faith in god, and it is not meant to be easy because we have to make character. God will shield us from no requirements of his sons and daughters any more than he shielded his own son. It is an easy business to sit in an armchair and say, oh yes, i believe god will do this and that; that is credulity, not faith. But let me say, i believe god will supply all my needs, and then let me run dry, no money, no outlook, and see whether i will go through the trial of my faith, or sink back and put my trust in something else. It is the trial of our faith that is precious. If we go through the trial, there is so much wealth laid up in our heavenly banking account to draw upon when the next test comes.
1. Direction of aspiration
unto thee lift i up mine eyes, o thou that dwellest in the heavens. (psalm 123:1)
Unto thee lift i up mine eyes we have to make the effort to look up. The things that make it difficult to look up are suffering, or difficulty, or murmuring. If you are suffering, it is intensely difficult to look up. The command to the children of Israel when they were bitten by the fiery serpent was, look to the bra- zen serpent. We cannot look up if we are murmuring; we are like the child who does not want to do what he is told, and the father comes and says, now look up, but the child wont. We behave like that with god; our circumstances are hard, we are not making progress in life, and the spirit of god says, look up, but we refuse and say, im not going to play this game of faith any more. The counsel given by the writer to the Hebrews is based on the effort of the saint let us lay aside every weight; let us run with patience the race that is set before us; looking unto Jesus; consider him (Hebrews 12:13).
2. Description of the attention
behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the lord our god, until that he have mercy upon us. (psalm 123:2)
God intends our attention to be arrested, he does not arrest it for us. The things jesus tells us to consider are not things that compel our attention consider the lilies of the field, behold the fowls of the air. The spirit of god instructs us to be attentive. Are our eyes so fixed upon god that we have spiritual discernment and can see his countenance in the dreadful cloud of war? Most of us are at our wits end, we have no inkling of what god is doing because our eyes have not been waiting upon him. We are apt to pay more attention to our newspaper than to gods book, and spiritual leakage begins because we do not make the effort to lift up our eyes to god. But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:13). That is a description of entire reliance on god. Be careful of anything that is going to deflect your attention from god. It is easier to rely on god in big things than in little things. There is an enormous power in little things to distract our attention from god; that is why our lord said that the cares of this world, the lusts of other things, would choke the word and make it unfruitful.
3. Distraction of annoyance
have mercy upon us, o lord , have mercy upon us: for we are exceedingly filled with contempt. Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease, and with the contempt of the proud. (psalm 123:34)
The thing to heed is not so much damage to our faith in god as damage to our temper of mind. There- fore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously (Malachi 2:16). The temper of mind if it is not right with god is tremendous in its effects, it is the enemy that penetrates right into the soul and dis- tracts us from god. There are certain tempers of mind we never dare indulge in; if we do, we find that they distract us from god, and until we get back into the quiet mood before god our faith in him is nil and our confidence in human ingenuity the thing that rules. Spiritual leakage comes not so much through trouble on the outside as through imagining you have screwed yourself a bit too high. For instance, you came to a particular crisis and made a conscientious stand for god and had the witness of the spirit that everything was all right; but the weeks have gone by, and the months, and you are slowly beginning to come to the conclusion that you had been taking a stand a bit too high. Your friends come and say, now don’t be a fool, you are only an ordinary human being; when you talked about this spiritual awakening we knew it was only a passing phase; you cant keep up the strain, god does not expect you to; and you say, well, i suppose i was a bit too pretentious.
It sounds wise and sensible, but the danger is that you do not rely on god any longer; reliance on worldly opinion has taken the place of reliance on god. We have to realise that no effort can be too high, because Jesus says we are to be the children of our father in heaven. It must be my utmost for his highest all the time and every time. Have mercy upon us, o lord, . . . For we are exceedingly filled with contempt. As gods children we have to see that we keep looking in the face of god, other- wise we shall find our souls in the condition of being filled with contempt and annoyance, with the result that we are spiritually distracted instead of spiritually self-possessed. This is true in individual circumstances as well as national crises. It is not always the cross mood that leads to the cross speech, but the cross word that makes the cross mood. If in the morning you begin to talk crossly, before long you will feel desperately cross. Take to god the things that perturb your spirit. You notice that certain people are not going on spiritually and you begin to feel perturbed; if the discernment turns you to intercession, it is good; but if it turns to criticism it blocks you in your way to god. God never gives us discernment of what is wrong for us to criticise it, but that we might intercede.
Unto thee lift i up mine eyes (psalm 123:1). The terrible thing is that we are likely to get to the place where we do not miss the consciousness of gods presence; we have gone on so long ignoring the lifting up of our eyes to him that it has become the habit of our mind and it never bothers us. We go on depending on our own wits and ingenuity until suddenly god brings us to a halt and we realise how we have been losing out. Whenever there is spiritual leakage, remedy it immediately.
It does not matter what you are doing, stop instantly when there is the realisation that you are losing out before god; lift up your eyes to him and tell him you recognise it lord, this thing has been coming in between my spirit and thee, i am not resting in faith. Get it readjusted at once. There is always a suitable place to pray, to lift up your eyes to god; there is no need to get to a place of prayer, pray wherever you are. Confess before god that you have been distracted away from faith in him; don’t vindicate yourself. The lust of vindication is a state of mind that destroys the souls faith in god i must explain myself ; i must get people to understand. The remarkable thing about our lord is that he never explained anything to anybody. Nothing ever distracted him out of his oneness with god, and he prays that they may be one, even as we are one.