Overcoming evil

Hostile to God’s plan, the dark powers controlling our world do all they can to keep us from seeing through their lies and seeking God. We overcome them by the power of God’s love.

A David psalm.

¹ Blessed be YHWH, my rock
who trains my hands for war
my fingers for battle.
² My steadfast ally, my fortress
my tower of safety, my deliverer
the shield I take refuge in
the God who subdues peoples under me.

³ YHWH, what is humankind
that you notice us?
Why give us mortals a second thought?
⁴ A human life is like a single breath
our days a fleeting shadow.

⁵ Burst through the sky and come down, YHWH.
Touch the mountains and make them smoke.
⁶ Crack your lightning and scatter my enemies—
shoot your arrows and panic them.

⁷ Stretch your hand down from above
and save me!
Pull me out of the seething waters—
out of the grip of outsiders
⁸ whose mouths utter lies
and who extend their right hands
only to deceive.
⁹ I will sing a new song to you, God
playing a ten-stringed harp for you
¹⁰ the God who gives victory to kings
and rescues your servant David
from the menacing sword.
¹¹ Save me!
Rescue me from the grip of intruders
whose mouths utter lies
and who offer their right hands
only to deceive.

¹² Then our sons will flourish in their youth
like well-nurtured plants
our daughters like corner columns
beautifully carved to grace a palace.
¹³ Our barns will be filled with crops of all kinds
our flocks will increase by thousands
by ten thousands in our fields
¹⁴ and our oxen will be all loaded down.
There will be no breaching our defenses
no going into exile
no cry of anguish in the streets.
¹⁵ How blessed the people
all this is true of!
How blessed the people
whose God is YHWH!

David’s opening lines and repeated cries of “save me!” tell us he desperately needs God’s protection to overcome the enemies bent on killing him. Misleading in every way, his foes are outsiders, whether literally or metaphorically—like Saul, whose hostility to David made him God’s enemy, despite his ethnicity and his lip service to YHWH.

Weaving lines from several earlier psalms—including Psalms 8, 18, and 33—into his cry for help, David infuses each with new meaning in his new combination of them. He begins and ends with blessing since it’s only through God’s blessing that we overcome evil and are restored. David acknowledges that God’s caring for his people and giving his kings victory is beyond understanding, except in the mystery of God’s love.

Desperate though David is—exiled from Jerusalem and under severe attack—he imagines himself singing a new song to celebrate a deliverance of such magnitude that no existing song will do. His deliverance will usher in a peace and prosperity in which every Israelite child will flourish—boys like fruitful plants, girls as pillars in the community—a future in which insecurity, exile, and anguish will be no more. All this blessing flows from the mutual embrace of David’s gracious God and his people, that being a truth post-exilic Jews would have taken great comfort in.

Prayer:

Jesus, you defeated evil by resisting the pervasive lies that tell us arrogance, greed, and sensualism give us true life. Take hold of my hand and rescue me from these seething waters. Your love and grace alone can save me. Help me believe I truly live only in your loving embrace. Amen.

During your free moments today, pray this prayer:

Stretch your hand down from above
and save me!
Pull me out of the seething waters—
out of the grip of outsiders.

I am your servant

Controlled by dark forces, the world lulls us into thinking we need just a bit of God’s help—or maybe none at all. God in turn uses life’s challenges to help us see how much we need him and to draw us close.

A David psalm.

¹ YHWH, hear my prayer.
As the faithful one
open your ear to my pleas.
As the righteous one
answer me.
² Don’t call your servant to account
for by your standards
no one alive qualifies as righteous.
³ The enemy has chased me down
and ground me into the dust
where I’m left to rot in darkness
like those long dead.
⁴ So my spirit faints
and my heart’s in despair.
⁵ I recall what happened long ago
reflecting on all you’ve done
pondering the things your own hands did.
⁶ I stretch out my hands to you
my soul thirsting for you
like parched ground for water. Selah

⁷ Hurry up and answer me, YHWH
because my depression’s deepening!
Don’t hide your face from me
lest I sink down to the grave.
⁸ Let the dawn bring me word
of your unconditional love
for I put my trust in you.
Show me the path I should take
for I entrust my life to you.
⁹ Save me from my enemies, YHWH
because I’ve run to you for refuge.

¹⁰ Teach me to do what pleases you
because you’re my God.
By your good Spirit
lead me on level ground.
¹¹ For the sake of your good name
revive me, YHWH.
Because you’re faithful to care for your own
bring me out of the trouble I’m in.
¹² Because your love for me is unfailing
you will do away with my bitter foes.
You’ll destroy everyone who attacks me
because I am your servant.

With enemies stalking him, grinding him into the dust, David is depressed and feels like his life is over. So he begs YHWH, who has promised to care for his servants, to give him back his life.

He pleads urgently, recalling God’s great acts of redemption. Underscoring his desperate need of undeserved favor, he admits that, just like everyone else alive, he’s unable to meet God’s standard of righteousness. In that sense, he’s just like his enemies. What distinguishes him from them is that he’s God’s servant: he trusts in God’s unconditional covenant love, thirsts for God like bone-dry ground for water, and longs to learn how to please him.

Besides pleading for God’s unfailing love to usher in a new day, David asks God to teach him and lead him. We tend to think we’ve got it together and need God’s guidance only when making major decisions. By contrast, David realizes how easily he falls prey to misdirection—that he needs guidance simply to please God.

In trouble, David doubtless remembers how Pharaoh’s army was fast approaching the Israelites when God closed the waters of the sea just as the dawn was breaking. David knows that, while he’s far from perfect, good will triumph in his situation only when evil is soundly defeated. For while God has anointed David king, nothing but death will make his enemies stop trying to kill him. So he asks God to do away with them.

Prayer:

Jesus, grant me your mercy. Without your Spirit’s leading, I so easily go wrong. Lead me on level ground. Faithful and overflowing in unconditional love, you’re my only hope. With you, I long for all to find your mercy. But I also ask you to do away with all who’d rather die than submit to you. Amen.

During your free moments today, pray this prayer:

Show me the path I should take
for I entrust my entire life to you.

When other helpers fail

Some challenges leave us feeling deeply troubled—abandoned even. David reminds us that at such times God, who knows the path we’re on, is our refuge, the one person we can count on in this world.

A David maskil, from when he was in the cave. A prayer.

¹ I cry out loud to YHWH
I plead loudly with YHWH for mercy.
² pouring out my inner turmoil before him
telling him all my troubles.
³ When my spirit grows faint
you, Lord, know my path.

They’ve hidden a trap for me
on the path I’m walking.
⁴ Look around me and see:
no one’s willing to show me kindness
leaving me no place to run to—
no one cares what happens to me.
⁵ I cry to you, YHWH:
“You are my refuge—
you’re all I have in the land of the living.”

⁶ Hear my cry
because I’ve reached rock bottom!
Rescue me from the people stalking me
because they’re way too powerful for me.
⁷ Bring me out of this prison
so I can praise your name.
Then God-seekers will surround me
because you’ve dealt so graciously with me.

David likely writes from the cave he hid in after escaping from Gath. Having found himself on King Saul’s hit list, he fled to his enemy’s enemy, as political refugees often do. But seeking protection from the Philistine king nearly cost David his life, showing him that his own ingenuity could never solve his problems.

Here, imprisoned in the cave, stalked by powerful men bent on catching and killing him, David has no one willing to help him and nowhere to turn. Just thinking about it makes him feel faint. But he knows that God knows where he is, how he got there, and what comes next. While desperately pleading for help, David realizes that YHWH, earth’s creator-sustainer, is his only refuge—all he’s got in the world. So he begs God to set him free.

Significantly, David envisions himself restored to the community of God-seekers, praising God for his rescue. That is, he foresees the joy of deliverance while he’s still in the cave. This reminds me of Jesus’ assurance of his resurrection’s joy even as his enemies plot his death. In calling us to take up our cross and follow him, Jesus invites us simultaneously to face opposition and trouble and to live by the unseen power of his resurrection, his strength complementing all of our weakness.

Prayer:

Abandoned by all your friends, Jesus, you went to the cross for me and for everyone too weak to help themselves. Help me believe you’re at work in my situation even when I can’t see it. Help me trust you to guide me and believe the power of your resurrection can make me triumph. Amen.

During your free moments today, meditate on these words:

“You are my refuge—
you’re all I have in the land of the living.”

Deliver me from evil

The self-serving make their evils enticing, reasonable, even “necessary.” Meanwhile, fellow believers can often be a royal pain. But neither of these facts comes close to making David consider changing sides.

A David psalm.

¹ YHWH, I’m calling on you—
come quickly to me!
Hear my voice crying out to you.
² Receive my prayer as incense
my outstretched hands as the evening sacrifice.

³ Post a guard beside my mouth, YHWH
a watch at the gate of my lips.
⁴ Keep my mind from being pulled toward evil
lest I join in the evil of the self-serving.
Don’t let me feast on their delicacies.
⁵ Let a God-seeker strike me—
I’ll count it a kindness.
When they correct me
it’s oil for my head—
let me never refuse it.
But I constantly pray
against the evil deeds of wrongdoers.
⁶ When their leaders are thrown onto the rocks
let the people hear my words
which are sweet.

⁷ Like clods of dirt plowed and broken up
our bones lie strewn at the very mouth of Sheol.
⁸ But my eyes are fixed on you
YHWH, my Lord.
In you I take refuge—
don’t leave me here naked, exposed.
⁹ Keep me from the trap they’ve set for me
from all the snares of the self-serving.
¹⁰ Let the wicked fall right into their own net
while I pass by unscathed.

With the self-serving out to trap him, David sees how vulnerable he is. Figuratively, he and other God-seekers lie beaten up at death’s door. But David’s desperation makes him fix his eyes intently on the only one who can deliver him from evil and take down his enemies. Likely restricted in his movements, David offers God his prayers and his outstretched hands in lieu of incense and sacrifices offered in God’s sanctuary.

Interestingly, the snares David hopes to avoid aren’t literal, physical traps. Rather, he’s tempted by the self-centered person’s “delicacies,” the kind of perks that often come to people when they put themselves ahead of God. Knowing how tempted he is by such benefits, he asks God to guard his mouth. He’s drawn to think thoughts that pull him away from God. Sensible, practical thoughts, like the many ways we can justify mistreating the little guy to get a bigger share of the pie. David knows how very easily he can be sucked into seeing such evils as normal, justifiable, even unavoidable.

Convinced of evil’s eventual doom, David resolutely opposes this selfishness and prays against it. In fact, so opposed is he to it that he’d rather endure indignity or correction from fellow God-seekers and even considers such injuries a treat compared to the delicacies of the self-serving. He knows it’s better to suffer wrong than to do wrong. Still, knowing how prone he is to wander, David urgently asks God to help him resist the evil around him.

Prayer:

Resisting all the evil you faced, Jesus, you did your Father’s will, even at the cost of your life. I would follow you. But without your help, Lord, I’m a sitting duck, adept at rationalizing my self-serving ways and so easily offended by Christian smallness. Deliver me from evil, I pray. Amen.

In your free moments today, pray these words:

Receive my prayer as incense
my outstretched hands as the evening sacrifice.