#2 – If it ain’t broke, break it.
From ancient times the book of Psalms has been called The Book of Praises, but the actual content of this collection of 150 hymns is more complex and interesting than that. Most do focus on praise, but there are other themes. We find laments, for example, with their outpourings of sorrow and discouragement; petitioning psalms, filled with urgent pleas for health, security, and the defeat of enemies; and even cursing psalms, that sometimes cry out for such cruel vengeance as to render them pretty much unfit for public reading. For instance, how many of us have ever heard Psalm 137:8-9 read in church? O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, / happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us / he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.
The psalms are examples, not of what we should pray, but how we should pray. When we come before God we should be so open and honest, so unguarded and unpretentious, that prayer becomes a widow into our very souls. Search me, O God, and know my heart; / test me and know my anxious thoughts. / See if there is any offensive way in me, / and lead me in the way everlasting. Psalm 139:23-24 If we were this authentic before God and one another we might be a little more discerning of our own motives and shortcomings, and a little less arrogant and blind.
Psalms 6:1-3 O LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger
or discipline me in your wrath.
Be merciful to me, LORD, for I am faint;
O LORD, heal me, for my bones are in agony.
My soul is in anguish.
There are seven of these “penitential” psalms in the Book of Psalms, and five of them are attributed to King David. Surely this suggests that sorrow for sin, repentance, and fear of the Lord, are sentiments worthy of great leaders, even of the ideal king. But this sort of transparency is all too rarely seen in a church leader, or any leader anywhere for that matter.
In both the Old and New Testaments David is called “a man after God's own heart”, and we see here that such an intimate relationship with God is not established upon purity and perfection – no one is pure or perfect before God – but upon confession and repentance. And David is a model of such a relationship with God precisely because he is so aware of his own sin. A godly leader may fear God’s anger, and long to escape his wrath, but he or she must not seek to avoid discipline. As the prophet Jeremiah humbly pleaded, Correct me, LORD, but only with justice not in your anger, lest you reduce me to nothing. Jeremiah 10:24
And herein lies one of the great failings of the modern church, and probably the church of every age. All communities must have leaders, and these women and men will inevitably have power, authority, influence, status, respect, and often other advantages like special training, experience, and outstanding gifts and abilities. But it is humility that harnesses these qualities for the benefit of the community, and humility is the result of a clear and honest self-assessment.
Psalm 51:17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
In 30 years of pastoral ministry I have seen far more damage done to the cause of Christ by the arrogant, self-centred friends of Jesus than ever by his enemies. And if this is what I find among the sheep, I must ask myself, what have we shepherds been up to all this time? Have we been modeling, and insisting upon, the kind of humble leadership that God desires for his people?
In recent years I have been asked on several occasions to stop referring to the people as sheep; they find it insulting, I’ve been told. Perhaps, we see the problem here. But, not to worry, it’s nothing that a little discipline won’t cure, or even just a little honest worship.
Psalm 95:6-7 Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the LORD our Maker;
for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care.
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