Trusting God alone who will never betray us
Trusting God alone who will never betray us
Sept. 15 – Psalm 55
To the leader: with stringed instruments. A Maskil of David.
1 Give ear to my prayer, O God; do not hide yourself from my supplication.
2 Attend to me, and answer me; I am troubled in my complaint.
I am distraught 3 by the noise of the enemy, because of the clamor of the wicked.
For they bring trouble upon me, and in anger they cherish enmity against me….
9 Confuse, O Lord, confound their speech; for I see violence and strife in the city.
10 Day and night they go around it on its walls,
and iniquity and trouble are within it; 11 ruin is in its midst;
oppression and fraud do not depart from its marketplace.
12 It is not enemies who taunt me—I could bear that;
it is not adversaries who deal insolently with me—I could hide from them.
13 But it is you, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend,
14 with whom I kept pleasant company;
we walked in the house of God with the throng….
16 But I call upon God, and the Lord will save me.
17 Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan,
and he will hear my voice.
18 He will redeem me unharmed from the battle that I wage,
for many are arrayed against me. 19 God, who is enthroned from of old, Selah
will hear, and will humble them – because they do not change,
and do not fear God.
20 My companion laid hands on a friend and violated a covenant with me
21 with speech smoother than butter, but with a heart set on war;
with words that were softer than oil, but in fact were drawn swords.
22 Cast your burden [or: Cast what he has given you] on the Lord, and he will sustain you;
he will never permit the righteous to be moved.
23 But you, O God, will cast them down into the lowest pit;
the bloodthirsty and treacherous shall not live out half their days.
But I will trust in you.
The psalm is long so these are selected verses. While we are not given the backstory for this psalm, it is evident that David is under pressure and threat. He has a complaint that he wants God to hear.
The end of vs. 2 and the start of 3: “I am distraught by the noise…because of the clamor of the wicked.” Those words feel like they could have been written in the present time as there is so much angry noise, so much clamor and trouble making through speech and actions. David is further upset because those who taunt him and deal insolently with him (vs. 12) are “my companion, my familiar friend, with whom I kept pleasant company”. David and his opponent even went to worship together. And the psalm feels even more like the moment we are living in, as discord rules the day, and people we thought to be our friends have become our harshest critics. Vs. 20 and 21 have the same theme, words of friendship hide the real intent of doing harm.
Such betrayal by people we thought to be our friends is deeply painful, and is profoundly unnerving for we begin to distrust everyone. Nowhere is safe. All relationships are suspect, we become guarded in everything we say and do. All of this wears away at us, filling us with anxiety. Yet the psalm affirms there is one who can be trusted.
Vs. 22 offers us two readings – to cast this burden of anxiety on God so that he would bear the burden. Or the second reading takes that deeper: God has put us in this moment (given this to us (vs. 22)). God is the one who is in control and we are his people in this time and in this place, we can give him this moment knowing that God will sustain us as faithful witnesses to God who alone is worthy of our trust.
PRAYER:
You, O Lord, when others betray our trust, You do not. We will trust you. You have put us in this moment and in this place, Your gift to us. We place ourselves in your hands, knowing that you will sustain us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.