Be merciful to me, O God; be merciful to me,
for in you my soul takes refuge;
in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge,
until the destroying storms pass by.
I cry to God Most High,
to God who fulfills his purpose for me.
He will send from heaven and save me;
he will put to shame those who trample on me.
God will send forth his steadfast love and his faithfulness.
I lie down among lions
that greedily devour human prey;
their teeth are spears and arrows,
their tongues sharp swords.
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens.
Let your glory be over all the earth.
They set a net for my steps;
my soul was bowed down.
They dug a pit in my path,
but they have fallen into it themselves.
My heart is steadfast, O God;
my heart is steadfast.
I will sing and make melody.
Awake, my soul!
Awake, O harp and lyre!
I will awake the dawn.
I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples;
I will sing praises to you among the nations.
For your steadfast love is as high as the heavens;
your faithfulness extends to the clouds.
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens.
Let your glory be over all the earth. (New Revised Standard Version)
The Human Condition
Maybe it’s just me, yet it seems, over the past several years, that our world has become increasingly depressed, jaded, and unkind. Things like appreciation and encouragement of others are found less and less as time goes on. It’s as if we are all in some sort of collective funk, in which everyone has an underlying sullenness and frustration about them.
Humanity has suffered a great deal of change and loss, without a healthy means of grieving and lamenting for what has happened to them. In other words, we simply don’t know what to do with our hurt, so we end up projecting our hurt onto others. *Sigh*
There is something that we all share together about the human experience: Sooner or later, someone or a group of people will let us down. They will hurt us in some way. And that hurt will change us – either for good or for ill.
What’s worse, many have experienced, or will experience, some sort of abuse and victimization from another person or group – leaving them scarred by trauma. And, what’s more, there are those who have had their very lives at risk, because someone intentionally sought to kill them.
King David’s Condition
That is the company David found himself in when King Saul, and the later when his son Absalom, sought to do away with his life.
To David’s credit, he never retaliated and did not try and turn the tables by putting a hit out on either Saul or Absalom. Instead, David cried out to God. And we get to listen in on the prayer. Today’s psalm is David’s prayerful reliance upon the God in whom he put all his trust and praise.
The entire basis of prayer is to let God be God. So, how do we exactly do that?
Our Condition
Whenever the storms of life assail us, calloused persons trample on us with impunity, devious individuals set traps for us, and greedy organizations prey upon us, we must refuse to respond in kind.
Instead, let us deliberately praise the Lord, rely on divine protection, and pray to God, so that we might steadfastly hold on to our confidence. Because if God is for us, nothing nor no one, can be against us.
That advice may seem like a sort of pie-in-the-sky rot of ginning up positive thoughts when there is nothing positive to be seen in the experience. Yet, please keep in mind that we must never, and I repeat, never invalidate another’s experience, nor our own, when those experiences are hellish.
There is always hope. There are two unshakable truths which are constant, and are never diminished by any adverse circumstance:
- God is present with us
- God loves us
If we know nothing else, and everything seems to be descending into the abyss of tragedy, the twin towers of divine presence and divine mercy stand guard as the strongest sentinels over our dilapidated situation, and struggling faith.
Letting God be God means not to try and control things we have no control over. Rather, it means to affirm that the Lord is willing and capable of handling our worst stuff.
It could be that we are stuck in the belly of a whale because, without our knowing it, there are sharks surrounding us, who cannot get to us because of divine attention and protection.
Our perspective of life-circumstances is, at best, severely limited. It is much better to place faith in the God who sees it all, with an expansive eye which misses nothing.
One of the best things, to me, about the psalms is that they are a wonderful collection of prayers we can adopt for our own. Not only can we use them for ourselves, but we are also obliged to do so.
If anyone has been in an adverse situation, so deep that it feels like having ambled into a pride of lions, it’s quite likely that the experience leaves one with no adequate words to say. There we are – paralyzed with fear, and unable to move.
So, let the psalm say for you what you cannot even begin to utter yourself. The Word of God is not meant to sit on a coffee table, or to rest on a shelf; it is meant to be opened and used for prayer. Allow it to do its intended purpose.
Who knows? Perhaps your faith in the mercy of God, and your praises lifted to God, will give rise to a newfound confidence and peace, so that you can rest secure, even when all around you is going to hell.
Be merciful to me, O God, for in you my soul takes refuge. Even though I feel the slash of people with tongues as swords, my heart is steadfast, and I will exalt your name above the heavens. Let your glory be over all the earth! Amen.
Rev. Tim Ehrhardt 