Awaken My Soul

I’m ready, God, so ready,
ready from head to toe.
Ready to sing,
ready to raise a God-song:
“Wake up, soul! Wake, lute!
Wake up, you sleepyhead sun!”
-Psalm 108:1-2, The Message

“I will awaken the dawn.”
- Psalm 108:2, NASB

I am this morning journaling my soul awake. This is my song; my pen my bow, the empty page my instrument. I am ready, Lord, ready for the new day to rise in my heart.

I opened this morning to Psalm 108 as, I think now, a kind of call-to-arise, a summons and an invitation to awaken and see the Lord in His temple. I turned a page back, then, to read through Psalm 107, and found it to be an unpacking of Jeremiah 31:3 — “I have loved you with an everlasting love, I have drawn you with lovingkindness.” This Psalm shows us what that looks like. how does God draw through lovingkindness?

Here is some of the Psalm:

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
his love endures forever.

Let the redeemed of the LORD say this—
those he redeemed from the hand of the foe,

those he gathered from the lands,
from east and west, from north and south.

Some wandered in desert wastelands,
finding no way to a city where they could settle.

They were hungry and thirsty,
and their lives ebbed away.

Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.

He led them by a straight way
to a city where they could settle.

Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love
and his wonderful deeds for men,

for he satisfies the thirsty
and fills the hungry with good things.

It then goes on to use another metaphor, one of darkness and gloom:

Some sat in darkness and the deepest gloom,
prisoners suffering in iron chains,

for they had rebelled against the words of God
and despised the counsel of the Most High.

So he subjected them to bitter labor;
they stumbled, and there was no one to help.

Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,
and he saved them from their distress.

He brought them out of darkness and the deepest gloom
and broke away their chains.

Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love
and his wonderful deeds for men,

for he breaks down gates of bronze
and cuts through bars of iron.

Some became fools through their rebellious ways
and suffered affliction because of their iniquities.

They loathed all food
and drew near the gates of death.

Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,
and he saved them from their distress.

He sent forth his word and healed them;
he rescued them from the grave.

Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love
and his wonderful deeds for men.

Let them sacrifice thank offerings
and tell of his works with songs of joy.

It goes on from there to paint another metaphor, one of being on the sea in the midst of a life-and-death storm and God delivering those who cried out for Him. It is almost as if God drew them out on the seas just so that their strength would be melted away and they would cry out to Him. In each case, the people had run out of places to turn to. Their resources had been depleted, the edge of their courage abated.

What I’ve found in reading through the Psalm is that He is a fierce redeemer. He seems to need to take us to hunger and humility of heart in order for us to receive that redemption. Perhaps those are the only locales in which we will see things as they truly are and truly call out to Him for rescue. He will not go against His giving us volition and free choice. He will not break that underlying dignity of humanity; He will, though, arrange for things that help us volitionally cry out for help. He will humble us.

The Psalm seems to suggest that this is evidence of His lovingkindness. This is what it looks like. It is brutal… but it sometimes has to be. It is kind because there is only one way to live, only one way to have true life, and that is in relational communion with the Godhead. God knows this better than we do, and so He sets out to redeem us from our adversaries, be them external to us or the pride and self-sufficiency that rises within.

“Who is wise?” the psalmist asks. “Let him give heed to these things.” Why? Because God’s heart is revealed by them. Because reality is expressed by them. Because God intends life for us, and this is part of the process of walking out this journey in that direction.

The last line of the Psalm reads, “And consider the lovingkindness of the Lord.” Yes. This is what we need. The hard, fast reality of God’s heart is like smelling salts to our souls, or the faint sound of voices as you dream which only get louder and more and more real until you open your eyes and realize they were coming from the other room. You step out of bed and leave the dream world behind — life beckons.

Blessed and awesome Lord God, You are loving and kind in all Your ways, and Your lovingkindness leads me to repentance, to leaving behind all that I thought was real and redemptive but have, in truth, no more substance than a dream. Your love allows me to leave behind these things in exchange for that which is truly Real. And that is You.

Your heart is a world to explore, a wonder, a beauty. I want it. Let me know You today, my Lord, my Love. Draw me further into this Life. Open my eyes and ears to perceive it. Let me be humble to receive it. And let me have a contrite heart, strong and virile in Your love, to walk in it.

I hunger for You, my God. My soul thirsts for You in a dry and weary land where there is no water. Amen.