Skip to main content

Our Own Worst Enemies

Lord, how many are y foes! How many rise up against me! Many are saying, "God will not deliver him." But you, Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high. I call out to the Lord, and he answers me from his holy mountain. I lie and sleep; I wake again, because the LORD sustains me. I will not fear though tens of thousands assail me on every side. Arise, LORD! Deliver me, my God! Strike all my enemies on the jaw, break the teeth of the wicked. From the LORD comes deliverance. My your blessing be on your people (Psalm 3).
           This morning, my sister mentioned finding comfort in the Psalms, and I decided she was right. That’s probably what I need right now. What I’m finding in the first few psalms, however, is that when the psalmist wrote of troubles, he was facing enemies, flesh-and-blood enemies who wanted to destroy him. I can’t relate. No one is after me with a gun. I can’t even really claim that the devil is out to get me. It doesn’t seem to me that either Dad or I are of enough spiritual importance to earn the enmity of the devil. I could be wrong, but my enemies at the moment all seem to come under the category of “life” and “circumstances.”
          It seems to me that the enemy who is saying “God will not deliver her” is me. My situation is my cross to bear, my burden, and I believe that it is by going through it, with all of its pain, that I will be made better, stronger, purer…. It will all work together for good, as Romans 8:28 promises, but that doesn’t make all that ends up working together for good, good. It seems to me I’m in a Kobayashi Maru scenario, there is no way to win, or if there is, it involves cheating and it seems to me that while other people cheat as easily as they breathe, I am so bad at it that there’s no use trying.
         And yet, God is the same God. He is still good. He hasn’t changed, and so, somehow, He is a shield around me. He is my glory. He is the One who lifts my head high. He does answer from His holy mountain. That doesn’t mean I can see the answers, but that they are either here or on the way. Perhaps it’s my jaw that needs to be stricken, and my teeth that need to be broken (I hope not, I don’t have dental insurance!) Perhaps I need to shut my mouth and wait to see what He does. Not quite sure how to do that. I’m too busy being angry and being foolish (remember Pity The Fool?)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Way, The Truth, and The Life

              Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me . (John 14:6)           If “I am the gate of the sheep…I am the good shepherd” from chapter 10 is a double whammy, this verse is a triple whammy. And its first victim is the notion that any other so-called god was acceptable or the same as Jesus. He, and He alone is the way, the truth, and the life, and the only way to get to the Father. There is no other Savior, or Redeemer, according to Jesus. Now, to be fair, other religions will claim that their religion or god(s) are the only way. That is the nature of gods and of religions. If this and that are equally good and agree on what’s necessary, then this and that are the same thing, so there’s no need to from the other to one. If that’s the case, then why speak against the other or promote the one? There’s a song I’ve been listening to i...
Post a Comment
Read more