Psalm 109: Get it off your chest!

Psalm 109 (NIV)

By Jim Salway

Almost 20 years ago I was facing a difficult situation in business, caused by problems with a colleague which seemed insoluble. I was really troubled about what to do, when a wise friend advised me, “Tell God what you want.”

I really hadn’t thought of doing that. I’d asked God for wisdom, for a way out, for a solution. But I hadn’t really understood that God would want me to articulate the outcome I wanted. Strangely it was liberating to understand that God was really interested in my thoughts and wishes, and to be able to express things that I had a vague sense that God might be shocked by!

In my blog on Psalm 62 I really felt the thrust was that we should not try to defend our reputation but trust the outcome to the providence of God.

In Psalm 109 however we find David calling down judgement on the wicked, on those who were opposing him in what are clearly wicked ways. We understand that ultimately the wicked will receive judgement, unless they repent, and perhaps, you may think, David should be asking that they repent rather than that they be judged.

However, and this is a frequent pattern in the Psalms, David turns from this diatribe – having got his feelings about his adversary off his chest – to a God-ward focus in the last third of the Psalm. He recognises his need of deliverance from this trouble, and in the end he asks that his deliverance will be the opportunity for God’s glory to be revealed.

I found as I gave all this to God that He gave guidance and a way through, including some very difficult and anxious times, but the knowledge that God had spoken words of comfort and direction at key times (in a variety of different ways) helped me keep my nerve when naturally I would have backed off. In the end I had a story of deliverance, if you like, from that circumstance.

So I was able to say, with the psalmist

“With my mouth I will greatly extol the Lord
In the great throng I will praise him.
For he stands at the right hand of the needy one,
To save his life from those who condemn him” (v 30-31)

However if I had not told God what I wanted him to do, even if it didn’t seem very ‘Christian’ to do so, I wonder if I would have ever been able to embark on the journey which led to that deliverance.

Psalm 62: Defence or Attack

By Jim Salway

Psalm 62 (NIV)

Ps 62:3 How long will you assault a man? Would all of you throw him down - this leaning wall, this tottering fence?(NIV)

Fences are very flimsy. They mark a boundary, but they don’t provide protection. I like this picture of how strong we are as men and women – that is, not very strong at all! Easily pushed over.

How do you or I react to that? Do we feel the need to justify and defend ourselves? How about, especially, when despite our best intentions, our motives or actions are misunderstood and spoken against? Do we try and explain, even though sometimes it only seems to make things worse?

We are just fences, we really can’t defend ourselves. Surely the answer is to look to our rock, our salvation, our fortress. At times like that we need to try and stop being fortresses ourselves, and run to our true fortress (read the Psalm!). He is the one will take care of our reputation – and the only reputation that really matters is the one we have with Him.

But we really do want to be well thought of, especially when we are misunderstood. That’s the problem with this sinful world, that everything we do is tainted with sin, to a greater or lesser degree – that’s why misunderstandings happen. We aren’t pure – remember Paul in 1 Corinthians 4:4 saying, “My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent.” (NIV). 
So what’s the answer? Remember Jesus, who was led like a lamb to the slaughter, who did not open his mouth (Isaiah 53:7 NIV). If anyone had the right to defend himself, surely Jesus did. He did not argue against ludicrous claims, false charges, accusations that were based on distortions of what really happened.

Sure, we challenge falsehood, but sometimes the best defence is not attack but silence, to hide in God and let Him be our defender.