Monday, January 29, 2018
O Lord, oppose those who oppose
me. Fight those who fight against me. Put on your armor, and take up your shield. Prepare for battle, and come to my aid. Lift up your spear and javelin against those
who pursue me. Let me hear you say, “I
will give you victory!” Bring shame and
disgrace on those trying to kill me; turn them back and humiliate those who
want to harm me. Blow them away like
chaff in the wind—a wind sent by the angel of the Lord. Make their path dark and slippery, with the
angel of the Lord pursuing them.
I did them no wrong, but they laid a trap for me. I did them no wrong, but they dug a pit to
catch me. So let sudden ruin come upon
them! Let them be caught in the trap
they set for me! Let them be destroyed
in the pit they dug for me. Then I will
rejoice in the Lord. I will be glad
because he rescues me. With every bone
in my body I will praise him: “Lord, who
can compare with you? Who else rescues
the helpless from the strong? Who else
protects the helpless and poor from those who rob them?” Psalm 35:1-10(NLT)
Have you ever shifted between two extremes, one being: you are totally alone and different than
everyone else on the planet…and the second: you’re in the same boat as every other member
of the human family…struggling with no help at all?
Either of these extremes can identify with David. The shepherd boy would become king looked at
his life and screamed: It’s
not fair! Now, before you
write him off as a whiney, complaining brat, remember that God called David a
man after his own heart[2]. David was praying with hard fought
integrity.
Many of the Psalms written by David are heart-searching
prayers as he lays his life open, crying-out to God. And in not just a few of those prayers David
asks the LORD to conquer or obliterate his enemy. If you check out Psalm 109 you find 31 verses
of David complaining to the Lord that people want his children to be fatherless
and suffer; as David prays he turns all the evil plots of his enemies right
back on their heads, asking God to take-them-out with as much vengeance as
possible. Like this Psalm David seems
fond of asking God to let his enemies fall in the pit they dug for him; it’s a
kind of Golden Rule in reverse!
This is not your Grandma’s now I lay me down to sleep
kind of prayer!
But it occurs to me that God would probably rather have me
grapple with the hard stuff of life, rather than rattle off a memorized, safe
little prayer ditty. The
hard
stuff comes out when you pray for success on your job when you’ve
been lazy and not giving your boss a full day’s work. You pray to pass a test in school, but you
partied into the night instead of studying. The hard stuff comes out when you pray for
protection and you’ve ignored the weak and powerless you could have easily
helped. That hard stuff makes you
swallow hard when you want to be healed, but you won’t even try to give up that
habit.
Prayer is exactly what you see in David’s repertoire, laying
out before God who you are and what you think you’ve been, and what you think
God can do to set the whole situation right; then you cease talking and start
listening, waiting, and watching for what God will do. The answers aren’t always pretty, but they’re
always on-time and worthwhile when it comes to making a person after God’s own
heart out of you.
For You Today
If you want Heaven to remain silent, just go on using
someone else’s prayer ditty; prayer that won’t grow and strengthen you
is safe and won’t change a thing.
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a
blessed day!
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