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             If only you, God, would slay the wicked! Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty! They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord, and abhor those who are in rebellion against you? I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.

            Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:19-24)

 

            The first paragraph of today’s passage sounds like David was plucking away at his harp, praising God, and opened his eyes to see a group of evil men skulking about. It’s an ugly interruption to something beautiful. Yes, we’re supposed to hate evil, but it seems as if David got majorly triggered.

            It’s sort of like my previous Shiba, Honey. If you touched her without speaking to her or otherwise letting her know you were there, she was likely to attack. After a few seconds, you would see her mind switch on with an “Oh, it’s you. OK.” Only Honey didn’t think she’d done anything wrong. I’m not sure she even remembered what she’d done. David, on the other hand, seemed to doubt. Instead of returning to the lofty heights of his praise, he seems to gaze into the murky depths of his soul.

            But isn’t this the way we all are? We begin to worship and praise and suddenly find ourselves lecturing someone who isn’t God and isn’t there. Our minds drift to something that excites an emotion other than love: lust, fear, anger, anxiety, self-centeredness, self-pity, etc. After a time, we realize how quickly and how far our minds have traveled from where we wanted them to be. We return to God, penitent and pensive, perhaps swinging from one extreme of arrogance (How good I am and bad they are!) to the other (I’m a worm!)

            David didn’t do either in this passage. Instead of beating himself up for his detour, he simply invites God to search him and guide him. This is a lesson that Brother Lawrence also taught in Practicing the Presence of God. If he found that his thoughts had wandered, he simply confessed to God that God could change in him what he could not, and he returned to the subject from which his mind had strayed.

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