• At prayer meeting Sunday we talked about acedia, which is probably best defined as “ spiritual lethargy.” Since coming into the ministry I’ve thought about this a lot — there seems to be a disillusionment that comes over people in their 40s. Through our 30s we may still take inspiration, and hope, from earlier spiritual vitality. But by the early to mid-40s, wearied by work and responsibilities, still dogged by sins we thought we would have left behind by that time, a gradual despair creeps in. If our early experiences of the joy and transcendence of God were powerful, the despair may be all the deeper. Our prior walk with God, our once long and passionate prayers, our former desire that God would take pleasure in our lives — they all seem to mock us.
• It’s in these years (though certainly not exclusively in these years) that we may start casting about for something to fill the void. A couple days ago I read an outstanding article by Reinhard Hutter connecting acedia and pornography: the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh. Here’s a quote: “acedia creates a void that we try to fill with transient rushes of pleasure… but [the things] that promise the rushes of pleasure betray us. They cannot fill the void created by the loss of our transcendent calling to the love and friendship of God. Rather, they only increase the craving… breeding compulsion and intensifying spiritual apathy, thereby encouraging acedia’s most dangerous offspring: despair.”
• If any of this resonates, I encourage you to remember Ecc. 7:10 “ Do not say, ‘why were the former days better than these?’” It’s likely neither the former days, nor your prior walk with God, were as good as you remember them. Instead, consider Ps. 118:24 “ this is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Here’s why.
• The psalm is a very purposeful reaffirmation of the goodness of God by a man who has just passed through misery — God has recently chastened him so “ severely” that it felt near to death (v.18). The near-loss of life turns into a wake-up for the psalmist: in the day-to-day grind, he had lost sight of how much there was to be thankful for. The world remains unchanged, but he sees it through new eyes.
• 118 is also a messianic psalm — it resonates with hope: “I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation.” He recognizes he has hope and a future. We can endure a lot when we know this; and it transforms what we must endure in the present. Our profound and damning flaw, our sin, has been answered by God himself: our future is secure and settled.
• Finally, Psalm 118 is a rebuke to our habit of wallowing in self-pity, to which many of us are prone. Depression is often a manifestation of pride. Life has given us less (so we imagine) than we were capable and worthy of. We despair, we pity ourselves, we’re depressed. We deserved better. Psalm 118 is a reminder that life is actually very good, far better than we, who so desperately need a Messiah, have any right to expect.
• Take a week and pray through the psalm, a couple verses each day. Meditate on them, go back over them, consider what they mean in your world. And pray, simply, that God would permit you to be thankful.