Tired of Pretending You’re Fine? Psalm 120 Offers a Place to Begin

By Pastor John Erickson

When I was a kid, our road trips to Illinois had a soundtrack. My mom, my brother, and I would spend hours in the car listening to the same tapes. We'd reach the end, flip the tape over, and start again. Some songs can still take me right back to those trips.

God's people had songs for the road, too. Psalms 120 through 134 are known as the Songs of Ascents, songs connected with the journey up to Jerusalem for worship. They gave people words to carry together along the way.

You might expect the first song to begin with excitement. Instead, Psalm 120 begins with distress.

Start Where You Actually Are

The psalmist calls on the Lord from a place of trouble. He doesn't first explain how he got his emotions under control or improved his attitude. He brings God the distress itself.

That's encouraging because we can spend a lot of time waiting to become the kind of person we think God wants to hear from. We'll pray once we're calmer, more grateful, or a little less angry. In the meantime, the honest prayer stays unspoken.

You can pray tired. You can pray frustrated. You can tell God that you're overwhelmed or that you don't like what a situation is doing inside you. The journey toward Him can begin with a very ordinary cry for help.

Ask God to Rescue You From Lies

As the psalm continues, we discover that some of the distress comes from deceitful words. The writer asks to be saved from lying lips. Words have done real damage, and he brings that damage to God.

Many of us know what that feels like. Something someone said about us, to us, or behind our backs has stayed with us far longer than they probably realized. A lie can begin shaping the way we see ourselves and the way we expect others to treat us.

But this prayer also needs to come closer to home. Sometimes we've started agreeing with a lie. We hear it so often that it begins to feel like the truth.

We can ask God to show us where that has happened. What have I accepted about myself that He never said? Where have I become comfortable with half-truths, suspicion, or words that keep me trapped?

Notice When God Makes You Uncomfortable With Staying Put

Later in the psalm, the writer describes having lived too long among people who hate peace. There's a growing recognition that the environment around him is shaping him in a direction he cannot keep accepting.

Sometimes that's how grace begins to feel in our lives. We become uncomfortable with resentment we used to excuse, fear we used to call normal, or patterns that are damaging our souls. We begin to realize we need God to lead us somewhere different.

That recognition can become prayer. "Lord, I've lived here too long. Help me tell the truth. Teach me what peace looks like."

You don't need to pretend you've already arrived somewhere better. Call on the Lord from the place you actually are. That is a good place for the road to begin.

Those childhood trips had a soundtrack because we played the same tapes over and over. We reached the end, flipped the tape, and kept going. Even now, a song can put me back in that car. That makes me wonder what words are becoming the soundtrack of my life today. Am I rehearsing fear and resentment, or am I learning to call on the Lord from the place I actually am?

Psalm 120 begins by asking rescue from other people's deceit. As I pray it, I also need to ask what false words I have started agreeing with myself. That is an application of the psalm, not a reason to blame someone who has been lied about. God can hear the wound and help us tell the truth.