Life between the ends, as we can each attest, has its difficulties, disappointments, and devastations. Like many psalms, Psalm 4 is a presumed petition amid the reality of life between the ends. The psalmist presumes, upon God's character and past actions, that prayer matters. The psalmist presumes that the in-real-life words will be met with transforming grace (v.1). Grace that comforts (v.3), grace that stirs up faithful resistance (v.4-5), and ultimately, grace that changes life between the ends--if not circumstantially, at least the experience of it:
"You have put more joy in my heart...In peace I will lie down and sleep immediately; for you make me dwell unafraid." (v. 7-8)
The grace received and lived is not merely an after-the-fact response to the psalmist's presumed petition. It is actually within the praying that grace does its heart-transforming work, preparing the psalmist to receive and live.
The psalmist prays the angst of verse 2, and by grace, prays the unceasing comfort of verse 3. The psalmist prays the indignation of verse 4, and by grace, prays the only means of overcoming in verse 5. And, most vividly, the psalmist prays what compels most of the world to pray in verse 6a, prayer for a good life rather than a difficult one, for something better than what we have. And, by grace, the psalmist prays the prayer of true sight,
"Lift up the light of your face upon us, O LORD!" (v. 6b)
In the Lord's presence is life unafraid, lived in joy and peace even between the ends. And the gracious thing is, in prayer, we more than receive a reminder of such truth; we are changed by it. May it be so for us, faith family, in our presumptuous petitions.
- Jeremy P.