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This week I was doing some preperation for somethign which involved me taking a look at Psalm 69. It let me onto an intersting thought - we should complain more.
The Psalm is written by an individual who is drowning, not literally, in hatred that comes form his enemies, his own society and even his family. He makes this situation known to God and then calls on God for help.
As we read the Psalm we begin to get a picture of what the complaint is. It would seem that this person is lamenting the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, so affected by this is he that he publically mourns for the loss of the Temple, an act which means even his community and family mock him.
This then is definitely one of those Psalms that are known as ‘complaint Psalms’ – some people hate them, the more moody ones amongst us love them.
The thought that struck me is most clearly demonstrated by a question, ‘When do you pray and spend time with God?” Those who gather together for formal worship at a gathering of church most likely and fairly easily pray and meet with God at church services and gatherings. This is one of the reasons why, as the author of Hebrews says, we shouldn’t give up the habit of meeting together: It creates a space of accountability; of mutual support; and a common desire to meet with God that makes that task easier for us all.
But many of us struggle with the complaint Psalms because we are not used to talking to God like this. This type of prayer, this type of conversation, or even song, is missing from our relationship with God.
Perhaps the reason for this is that we don’t spent time with God in prayer, or spend time with God in other ways, in the midst of an ordinary week as much as we ought. All of us have something to complain about. We are not like this particular Psalmist, no one has knocked down our place of worship, although of course that does happen in places in the world where Christians are persecuted. But we all know someone who is ill; we all struggle with our families at times; we all face issues that we are less than satisfied with.
Those of us who are more prone to inviting God into every aspect of our lives are more prone to complain. Those people don’t wait until church when they are amongst friends, clergy, and those who lead worship. They know that God is God who is in heaven, and because God is in heaven then two things can happen. God can act on our complaint and make something happen, and through praise and prayer we can find ourselves in the presence of God, and once there we look down on that which we are complaining about. This doesn’t make the sickness, the battle with life threatening disease, the gravity of collapsing relationships any less serious, but it does mean that they all look a bit different when viewed from an eternal perspective.
But God is not just God in heaven, he is Emmanuel, God with us, who took on the from of a slave, poured himself out and became nothing, obedient to death, even death on a cross. And so God is with us in the midst of our complaint.
When faced with the truth of this, as we read through the complaint Psalms like Psalm 69, then perhaps complaining to God is not such a bad thing. God is the one who can do something about it, and those who complain, believe in a God who is able to do something about it, and who is always with us even unto the end of the age. Amen.
