Righteousness - Psalm 22
Another pattern I see in the Psalms regarding righteousness… righteousness is often in the last verse of the Psalm. I have yet to see it in the first verse, but then I’m reading only one a day, so I haven’t looked yet. But still, this catches my attention. Well, on to the Psalm…
Psalm 22 is perhaps my favorite one. It foretells of Jesus on the cross. I love the prophetic accuracy of its details, and the vivid description of the emotions. I love how it turns around to praising God as Jesus was apt to do.
After describing in physical hyperbole the spiritual suffering within which he finds himself, and after describing the way he gets treated by mankind as he suffers, David writes this about God (emphasis added by me):
 24 For he has not despised or disdained
      the suffering of the afflicted one;
      he has not hidden his face from him
      but has listened to his cry for help.
In other words, people will make you suffer, and hate you for the suffering they see you in. But, God does not. He lets you suffer until you call out, because he wants you in relationship. To atheist, it looks like God tortures you until you relent, but that’s not it. It’s that people who do not suffer will despise their creator, thinking they don’t need Him, when it was Him who gave them the life without suffering that they enjoy. To realize your need for Him, and the fact that you already depend on Him, whether you mean to or not, He will let you suffer. He will let you get to the point, not the point where you finally request His grace, but the point where you finally realize that you’ve had it all along but didn’t appreciate it. This is the point at which you truly turn to Him and love Him for who He is and for who He made you.
David then goes on to describe this realization, and his yearning to see others living in it. As their king, he wants them to live in God’s love and grace, though may despise David now, but love God later, that…
 31 They will proclaim his righteousness
      to a people yet unborn—
      for he has done it.