Praying Psalm 10
The news of this week has me feeling angry and confused, sad and grieving. It feels as if these times are unprecedented and I talk to folks who wonder if God may have just given up on us all together. Then I read Psalm 10, and I hear the same heart-cry. We are not alone in our desire for God to intervene, and we can pray this ancient prayer with all those generations before us. A prayer like this reminds us that we can confess to God our doubts, our fears, our anger, our plans. And a prayer like this reminds us that in the end we trust God, and we yield our will to his just as Jesus did for us all those years ago (Luke 22:42). God knows and cares about our pain and God has a plan to end it, but in the middle there is suffering that is hard to comprehend.
If you are suffering today, or struggling to comprehend, or if you are sympathetic to the suffering in our world, would you join me in praying Psalm 10 for ourselves, our community, our nation and our world? Feel free to make it your own, to use specific names and circumstances that are troubling you and to spell out what you wish could happen. Free yourself from the burden of carrying this pain and anger alone. Then make your confession of faith personal as well (verses 16-18), repeating the promises of God for all time and acknowledging his faithfulness in your own life. In the end, let's choose to trust God and yield to his will.
Oh, Lord, hear our prayer. Amen.
If you are suffering today, or struggling to comprehend, or if you are sympathetic to the suffering in our world, would you join me in praying Psalm 10 for ourselves, our community, our nation and our world? Feel free to make it your own, to use specific names and circumstances that are troubling you and to spell out what you wish could happen. Free yourself from the burden of carrying this pain and anger alone. Then make your confession of faith personal as well (verses 16-18), repeating the promises of God for all time and acknowledging his faithfulness in your own life. In the end, let's choose to trust God and yield to his will.
1 Lord, why are you standing aloof and far away? Why do you hide when I need you the most?
2 Come and deal with all these proud and wicked men who viciously persecute the poor. Pour upon these men the evil they planned for others! 3 For these men brag of all their evil lusts; they revile God and congratulate those the Lord abhors, whose only goal in life is money.
4 These wicked men, so proud and haughty, seem to think that God is dead. They wouldn't think of looking for him! 5 Yet there is success in everything they do, and their enemies fall before them. They do not see your punishment awaiting them. 6 They boast that neither God nor man can ever keep them down--somehow they'll find a way!
7 Their mouths are full of profanity and lies and fraud. They are always boasting of their evil plans. 8 They lurk in dark alleys of the city and murder passersby. 9 Like lions they crouch silently, waiting to pounce upon the poor. Like hunters they catch their victims in their traps. 10 The unfortunate are overwhelmed by their superior strength and fall beneath their blows. 11 "God isn’t watching," they say to themselves; "he'll never know!"
12 O Lord, arise! O God, crush them! Don't forget the poor or anyone else in need. 13 Why do you let the wicked get away with this contempt for God? For they think that God will never call them to account. 14 Lord, you see what they are doing. You have noted each evil act. You know what trouble and grief they have caused. Now punish them. O Lord, the poor man trusts himself to you; you are known as the helper of the helpless. 15 Break the arms of these wicked men. Go after them until the last of them is destroyed.
16 The Lord is King forever and forever. Those who follow other gods shall be swept from his land.
17 Lord, you know the hopes of humble people. Surely you will hear their cries and comfort their hearts by helping them. 18 You will be with the orphans and all who are oppressed, so that mere earthly man will terrify them no longer.
Oh, Lord, hear our prayer. Amen.
No Comments