Praying
According to our Pain & God’s Character
(Praying
According to…, Pt.4)
Here is a brief review of our recent prayer topics:
- Praying
in agreement with the Bible
- Praying
the Bible itself
- Praying
affectively, with the right attitude. Prayer should be relational more than a
task-oriented shopping list.
- Praying According to the News.
[Consume only as much as you are willing to pray for.]
- Last
week we walked through Psalm 34 seeing it as an Antidote for Angst
This week’s blog post looks at Psalm 35, which is the story of faithfulness under attack. David
cried out for deliverance from those who had broken their covenant with him, those
who had falsely accused him of breaking the covenant himself. He asks God to
judge the wicked and to deliver him from their attack. This kind of Psalm is
called an Imprecatory Psalm because it is characterized by imprecation. This
begs the question, “What is an Imprecation?” An imprecation is a prayer, or wish, invoking judgment or harm upon an adversary. It can also be a type of curse. Ancient covenants often included a
self-curse upon the participants if they were to break the covenant. As children,
many of us have done the same thing reciting, “Cross my heart and hope to die,
stick a needle in my eye.” We sometimes use humorous imprecations in comedy.
Here are a few. Johnny Carson used to use the old Arab imprecation, “May the
fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits! Some more recent internet
imprecations include:
- May you always step in a wet spot after putting on fresh socks.
- May you always get up from your computer with your headphones still
attached.
- May you have your laptop charge overnight without noticing the cord
isn’t plugged into the wall.
- May all your Facebook notifications be game invites.
- May your tea be too hot when you receive it, and too cold when you
remember it is there.
However, imprecations in the
Bible are real. If we are going to be honest in our communication with the
Lord, we should know how to express our legitimate feelings of betrayal and
injustice to him. Imprecatory psalms (including parts of
Psalms
6, 7, 11, 12, 35, 54, 55, 58, 59, 69, 79, 109, 137, and 139) do just that and contain curses or
prayers for punishment or judgment of the psalmist's enemies.
Here is a
sampling of some imprecatory statements from the Psalms:
55:15
"Let
death take my enemies by surprise;
let them go down alive to the grave."
58:6
"O God, break the teeth in their mouths…"
59:11-13 Kill them not, lest my people forget;
make them totter by your power and bring them down,
O Lord, our shield!
For the sin of their mouths, the words of their
lips,
let them be trapped in their pride.
For the cursing and lies that
they utter,
consume them in wrath;
consume them till they are no more,
that they may know that God rules over Jacob
to the ends of the earth.
In Psalm
7:3-5 there is a self-imprecation asking God to punish the psalmist if he had
done what he was accused of doing—such a statement was a strong statement of
his innocence,
O Lord my
God, if I have done this,
if there is wrong in my hands,
if I have
repaid my friend with evil
or plundered my enemy without cause,
let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it,
and let him trample my life to the ground
and lay my glory in the dust.
Imprecations
are not really about revenge, but about justice. They are about praying that
God’s kingdom would come on earth as it is in heaven! They look to the
eschatological consummation of the kingdom when wickedness will be no more.
Having said this, I need to clarify that God’s people in the Old Testament did
not have a full understanding of what it meant for God’s kingdom to come. They
took Genesis 12:3 seriously. More on this idea later.
So how can we pray when we may be the victim of injustice or betrayal? Allow
me to suggest four simple things that we can do to authentically process both
our feelings and our faith amid hurtful situations. We can…
1.
Process our Pain through Prayer (Psalm 35:11-17;
69:1-3)
Sometimes
we are simply in pain and need to share it with God. We can be upfront with
him about it…we won’t scare him away! Psalm 69 starts with just such a lament
that reminds me of the silly children’s song, “I’m being eaten by a boa constrictor.”
Save
me, O God!
For the waters
have come up to my neck.
I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold;
I have come into deep waters,
and the flood sweeps over me.
I am weary with my crying out;
my throat is parched.
My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God. (Psalm 69:1-3)
Our
ability to process our pain through prayer depends upon how well we do two
things—honestly acknowledging our situation and asking our very real questions.
We need to Acknowledge Our Situation
(v.11-16)
11 Malicious witnesses rise up;
they ask me of things that I do not know.
12 They repay me evil for good;
my soul is bereft.
13 But I, when they were sick—
I wore sackcloth;
I afflicted myself with fasting;
I prayed with head bowed on my chest.
14
I went about as though
I grieved for my friend or my brother;
as one who laments his mother,
I bowed down in mourning.
15 But at my stumbling they rejoiced and
gathered;
they gathered together
against me;
wretches whom I did not know
tore at me without ceasing;
16 like profane mockers at a feast,
they gnash at me with their teeth.
The psalmists are not in denial regarding their situation, rather they proceed to let God and the reader know how things stand in verses 11-16. We
should realize that there is no need for us to inform God about what is
happening to us—for he already knows—but we may need to tell him for our
benefit so that we can process our pain through his faithful presence. The
psalmist uses strong legal imagery in v.11 speaking of false witnesses (which
God hates) and their oppressive interrogation of the innocent writer. The authors don’t just
describe what is happening to them externally but recount their internal pain in v.12 using the intense term “bereft” which describes the kind of grief
experienced at the loss of one’s children. They talk about caring for the other
in a very parental way. Perhaps because of this, David also knew what it meant
to be “bereft”—he had several close advisors betray him and a couple of his own
sons turn against him. He deeply mourned their deaths. The closest I can come
to that sense of loss is when my wife and I had a couple of adoptions fall
through at the last minute, or were laid off from long-term ministry positions.
It is essential for our emotional and spiritual health that we not pull back
from God during our times of suffering, but instead, powerfully experience his
presence in the midst of it.
We need to Ask Our Questions (v.17)
David asked his really scary question in verse 17,
How long, O Lord, will you look on?
Rescue me
from their destruction,
my precious life from the lions!
It is OK to ask questions in prayer! What questions do we have when we
pray? There are quite a few that are asked in the Psalms. I’ll give you the
first one and then leave you to fill in the blanks on the rest.
- Why? (Psalm
42:9; 43:2; 44:23-24; 74:11; 88:14) “Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (Psalm 10:1)
- ____________? (Psalm 8:4; 11:2-3; 30:9; 39:7; 69:4; 77:13)
- ____________? (Psalm 36:7; 77:3; 119:9; 137:4; 139:17)
- ____________? (Psalm 4:2; 6:3; 13:1; 62:3; 74:10; 79:5; 80:4; 89:46; 90:13; 94:3
- ____________? (Psalm 42:2; 119:82, 84)
- ____________? (Psalm 2:1; 10:13; 44:24; 74:1, 11; 88:14)
- ____________? (Psalm 15:1; 19:12; 24:3-4, 8,10; 25:12; 27:1; 73:25; 76:7; 89:6-8;
94:16; 113:5-6)
- ____________? (Psalm 66:3)
Our questions should not separate us from God but cause us to run to
him for the answers. Some questions he answers clearly in the Bible, and others
remain a mystery. We need to be comfortable with the fact that while he may not
clear everything up for us right now, he is with us right now as we walk
through our pain. My former pastor, Ron Mehl, used to say,
“Do not despise that which drives you to your knees.”
2. Process our fear by praying God’s promises (Psalm 35:1-3; 94:17-19)
Praying through God’s promises is not to
remind God of something that he forgot, but to remind us of something God has
said that we need to trust. David began Psalm 35 with just such a prayer,
Contend,
O Lord, with those
who contend with me;
fight against those who fight against me!
Take hold of shield and buckler
and rise for my help!
Draw the spear and javelin
against my pursuers!
Say to my soul,
“I am your salvation!”
This
prayer trusts that the Lord will
“contend” [a legal term] and “fight” [a military term] on his behalf. It trusts
the Lord’s covenant promises while asking the Lord to “gear up” for the mission. I love how verse 3 ends, “Say to my soul, ‘I am your salvation!’”
which is the Hebrew name Yeshua (Jesus)!
Another
example of this is the trust in who God is and what he does that is expressed in Psalm 94:17-19,
If the Lord had not been my help,
my soul would soon have lived in the land
of silence.
When I thought, “My foot slips,”
your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up.
When the cares of my heart are many,
your consolations cheer my soul.
It is the steadfast love (hesed) of God that sustains and steadies me. Let’s
take a closer look at the Lord as
our Advocate and Defender.
A) He is our Advocate and Judge (Psalm
35:20-24; 1 John 2:1-6)
Psalm 35:20-21
For they do not speak peace [shalom],
but against
those who are quiet in the land
they
devise words of deceit.
They open wide their
mouths against me;
they
say, “Aha, Aha!
Our eyes have seen it!”
Those who
spoke these violent and slanderous words are false witnesses (in violation of Command
# 9). It is of some interest that the Hebrew word translated as “Aha, Aha!” is "heach" (heh·äkh') which occurs twelve times in nine verses. What does
this heach mean? Scholars are not exactly
sure, but it was always very offensive! However, I think there is a descriptive
clue in Ezekiel 25:3-7. The passage
contains the Lord’s judgment on
the Ammonites for their celebration of the defeat and exile of the Jews and the
destruction of the Temple. Note the similar structure of verses 3 and 6,
v.3 Thus says the Lord God,
over
my sanctuary when it was profaned,
and over the
land of Israel when it was made desolate,
and over the
house of Judah when they went into exile…
v.6 For thus says
the Lord God:
Because you
have clapped your hands and stamped your feet
and rejoiced with
all the malice within your soul
against the land of Israel…
In this
arrangement, I would suggest that verse 6 closely parallels verse 3 and
potentially describes the heart behind the “Aha!” If this is the case, then we
can see why God finds it so offensive and why the psalmist cries out for the
Lord to do something about such injustice.
Psalm 35:22-24
You
have seen, O Lord; be
not silent!
O Lord, be not far from me!
Awake and rouse yourself for my vindication,
for my cause, my God and my Lord!
Vindicate me, O Lord, my God,
according
to your righteousness…
In the first
line, the psalmist calls on God to be his true witness while in the second line he
seeks God’s delivering presence! Again, the legal and military images are
paired. The third line speaks from the perspective of the oppressed in whose
eyes it may appear that God is sleeping and not acting, however, God doesn’t
sleep even if sometimes seems like it. We need to humbly admit that our realm of perception is not broad
enough to capture all that God is doing!
1 John 2:1-6 teaches us that Jesus
Christ is the Lord our advocate!
He is also our Judge in the sense of vindication. He “vindicates” me is said at
least five times in Psalms alone.
B) He is our Defender—the
Lord of Hosts (Yahweh Sabaoth) (See 1 Chron.
11:9; 11:7-10; Psa. 46:7)
Yahweh
Sabaoth or “Lord of Hosts” was a trending name for God at the time of Samuel
and King David [along with Yahweh Nissi—God
my Protector]. Here is another example of this.
“The nations rage, the kingdoms totter;
he utters his voice, the earth melts.
The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah” (Psalm 46:6-7)
3. Process our frustration by praying for God’s purposes (Psalm 35:4-8; 138:7-8;
Prov. 19:21; Matt. 6:10; also, Isaiah 14:24-27; 23:8-9;
46:8-13; 55:6-12)
In
addition to our pain and our fear, in imprecatory psalms, we can process our
frustration by praying for God’s purposes. So, what is it that God wants to do in
the world? This type of prayer is like praying his promises, but perhaps it
further reveals his mission more than just the provisions for the fulfillment of
the mission. In the NT church, we pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on
earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). While the ancient Israelites didn’t
have the complete picture of what this entails such psalms take his
progressively revealed purposes seriously. Though they didn’t know everything
in all fullness, they took what they knew seriously.
Praying about God’s purposes involves praying…
A. That justice and righteousness would be valued (v.4-8; Gen. 12:1-3)
Verses 4-8 contain some powerful imagery—of the
dark and stormy night faced by those opposing the purposes of the Lord.
Let them be put to shame and dishonor
who seek after my life!
Let them be turned back and disappointed
who devise evil against me!
Let them be like chaff before the wind,
with the angel of the Lord driving them away!
Let their way be dark and slippery,
with the angel of the Lord pursuing them!
For without
cause they hid their net for me;
without cause
they dug a pit for my life.
Let destruction come upon him when he does not know
it!
And let the net that he hid ensnare him;
let him fall into it—to his
destruction!
As you may already know, this
passage contains my favorite imprecation in the Bible. It is a series of "Let
them..." statements that basically asks God to bring the worst fears of
the ungrateful, untruthful, and unrepentant wicked upon them...on a dark and slippery path! Have you ever had one of those dreams where you
couldn’t seem to get away from that which was pursuing you and your feet were
slipping like a cartoon character? That is what the psalmist wishes upon the
betrayer…that he won’t be able to get away from the God of truth! This
malediction is likely a reference to covenant curses accepted by all parties
involved in a covenant.
The psalmist is speaking of those who have broken their
vows— “Vow-breakers!” This is
also what I call a “boomerang” or justice curse
where that evil which they planned for others happens to them instead. To whom
do these verses refer? To those that try to destroy your life without a reason,
to those that lie about you and repay kindness with evil. They get to live a
nightmare of their own making. The simple lesson for me is that this is a
reminder—don't be like the wicked—plan what is good for others instead of evil!
B. For the welfare of
his servants (Psalm 138:7-8; 84:10-12)
The Lord’s
purpose for his people is to bring about their welfare. It is a manifestation of his steadfast
love. Thus, his purpose will stand for me, “Many
are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.” (Prov. 18:21) His purpose is a sure
thing no matter what nation you are from as we see in his judgment upon the
Assyrians in Isaiah 14:24-27.
C. For the humility of
the nations (Isaiah 23:8-9; see also Luke 6:24-26)
D. With the confidence that his purpose will be accomplished—all of it
(Isaiah 46:8-13)
What
else does he purpose? The reconciliation of relationships. Some think of the
Lord as some kind of cosmic killjoy, a grumpy old man who wants us to get off
his lawn, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Isaiah 55 makes it clear
that God’s purpose for us is to show compassion to us and abundantly pardon all those who return to him! His purpose invites us to share in the peace and joy
of a restored relationship with him and with each other.
“Seek
the Lord while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous
man his thoughts;
let him return to the Lord, that
he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon… (Isa.
55:7-8)
So shall my word be that goes out from my
mouth;
it shall not
return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
“For you shall go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and the hills
before you
shall break
forth into singing,
and all
the trees of the field shall clap their hands. (Isa. 55:11-12)
The psalmist processed his frustration, not by plotting revenge but by humbly praying for the purposes
of God to be revealed. The question we must answer is, “Will we patiently trust in the Lord’s
plan and purpose or angrily cling to our own agenda and timetables?”
Trusting
God as our Advocate and Deliverer is a life and death issue for us in our
weakness (though in the West we try to hide our weaknesses and dependence
behind a façade of self-sufficiency). It is when we confess our own weakness
that we can be strong in grace!
4. Process our weakness through God’s strong love (v.9-10,
23-28)
Here
in Psalm 35, we see the writer joyfully express his dependence upon the salvation of the Lord while also
declaring the greatness of the Lord.
Then my soul will rejoice in the Lord,
exulting in his
salvation.
All my bones shall say,
“O Lord, who is like you,
delivering the poor
from
him who is too strong for him,
the poor and needy
from him who robs him?” (Psa. 35:9-10)
In verse 18, the psalmist states
their intention to publicly thank and praise God in the company of the
congregation of the faithful. At the same time, the psalmist wants the
celebration of the wicked to be spoiled.
If
we are praying for the purposes of God, then this will be our position as well. We
engage our emotions as we process our weaknesses. We pray that the Lord would:
- Spoil the celebration of the
wicked, because of their “Aha” behavior (v.19-21).
- Vindicate us according to his righteousness
(v.24).
- Prevent the
wicked from being satisfied (v.25a). Why? Because for that to happen they would
have to swallow up the innocent.
- Preserve the
oppressed from being consumed (v.25b).
- Shame the
oppressors—those who rejoice at suffering (v.26).
- Enable the oppressed—those who delight in
the goodness of God and his people to see victory (v.27; Isaiah 26:2-4; 32:1-8).
- Receive our testimony of unending praise for
the God who puts us first (v.28). We get to testify to what God has done
and will do in our lives...what a privilege!
There is no one who really cares
about justice for those in need like the LORD!
As we spend time with him...may some of that concern rub off
on us…and it will bring us full circle in our prayer.
5. Come full circle—praying to bless not curse (Luke
6:28; Rom. 12:14)
Psalm
35’s imprecation (v. 4-6) is transformed when we read it through a New
Testament filter. Who is the pursuing Angel of the Lord? It is the
pre-incarnate appearance of God the Son—Jesus Christ—nothing less. Why does the
Lord Jesus pursue people? He is the good Shepherd who goes looking for his lost
sheep. In our fallenness, he appears to be something frightening to flee when
in fact he is our only hope to truly live. He seeks to redeem even his most
zealous persecutors (Acts 8:1-3; 9:1-31). As his followers, we are called to a
higher standard of response than fight or flight. Jesus taught,
“But I say to you who hear, Love
your enemies,
do
good to those who hate you,
bless those who curse you,
pray for those who abuse you. (Luke 6:27-28)
Later,
Paul, the former persecutor, after personally suffering much for the gospel, continued this
teaching of Jesus as he wrote to the church in Rome,
Bless
those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.
Rejoice
with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.
Live
in harmony with one another.
Do
not be haughty, but associate with the lowly.
Never
be wise in your own sight.
Repay
no one evil for evil, but give
thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.
If
possible, so far as it depends on you, live
peaceably with all.
Beloved, never avenge
yourselves, but leave it to
the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is
mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”
To
the contrary, “if
your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink;
for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be
overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Rom. 12:14-21)
It is good to give thanks to the Lord, 
Psalm 95:1-3
Psalm 97:11-12
