Last time I posted in this series on the psalms I made the unfortunate statement that I was posting at least once per week. Well, I’m almost a week overdue on this one if this is the case so why don’t we all just forget about that little misstep.
We’ve made it all the way up to the seventh psalm so there’s only 143 to go (you know, if you’re only counting Psalm 119 as one psalm…). This one is a little longer than the first few, coming in at 17 verses long, so I’m
A Shiggaion of David, which he sang to the LORD concerning the words of Cush, a Benjaminite.
1 O LORD my God, in you do I take refuge; save me from all my pursuers and deliver me, 2 lest like a lion they tear my soul apart, rending it in pieces, with none to deliver.
I guess I should probably, first give a definition of the word ‘Shiggaion’. In some translations this word is translated as ‘meditation’. The concensus seems to be that the word means ‘wandering’. So it’s kind of like a meandering, leisurely walk through the woods. David’s gonna just go wherever his thoughts take him and he’s gonna be just fine with that.
You have to wonder if this is meant to symbolize how he managed to elude the pursuits of King Saul for so long; he wandered through the wilderness, listening to the nudging of the Holy Spirit. Going where the Spirit told him and finding safety in the shiggaion of the Spirit. The first even speaks to his reliance on Yahweh for his deliverance from those who pursue him.
3 O LORD my God, if I have done this, if there is wrong in my hands, 4 if I have repaid my friend with evil or plundered my enemy without cause, 5 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. Selah
How much better would our lives be if we everyone would live their life like this? Or, how much better would my life be if I chose to be this honest with my unrighteousness? Am I willing to let my life hang on every action that I take? No way! But I want to be!
6 Arise, O LORD, in your anger; lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies; awake for me; you have appointed a judgment. 7 Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you; over it return on high. 8 The LORD judges the peoples; judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me.
OK, I need to take a minute and point out how crazy this sounds to me. I mean, I try to always walk out my life in a way which would be pleasing to the Father. I try to do my best to follow in the footsteps my Messiah has taken. But the key part of that last sentence is “try to do my best.” While I’d like to be able to say that I do my best, there are so many times that I slip up. There are so many times that my focus turns back onto myself. There are so many times that my eyes turn away from Jesus and back onto myself. And here we have David pleading with the God of the universe – the very definition of righteousness – to judge him according to his own righteousness. I am way too aware of my filthy unrighteousness to ever make a statement like this. I thank God every day for the grace I have been shown through Jesus that I might be considered justified, even though my steps turn to the side more often than they should. Actually, that’s a lie; I don’t thank God every day for the grace I’ve been shown, even though I should. That’s kind of what I’m talking about. My intent is to be righteous, but I know that I’m not. And David would’ve known the same thing, yet he still wanted to be judged according to his righteousness. And that is probably why David was a man after God’s own heart. And I pray that the Father leads me further down the path that leads to this heart.
It should also be noted that David was willing to subject himself to the same judgement as the judgement he was asking of the LORD for his enemies. How much would we seek retribution if we were willing to be judged by the same righteous standard?
9 Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end, and may you establish the righteous-- you who test the minds and hearts, O righteous God!
There is so much righteousness on the mind of David. How much do we think of what it means to be righteous and how ardently do we strive after that righteousness?
10 My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart.
Hidden in this is that in order for God to be your shield, you have to be upright in heart. Again David is calling upon God to save him because he’s sure of his uprightness. I don’t know how many times I can express how crazy I think this is. I hope to someday be able to be so sure of myself!
11 God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day.
Take this in for a second. Because God is so righteous he sees our righteousness as indignation. We claim to be the Temple of the Holy Spirit but we have such a whimsical view of unrighteousness. We need to question why we don’t detest sin like God does.
12 If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword; he has bent and readied his bow; 13 he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts.
Even in the face of words like these, we’re still complacent with our view on sin. I’m speaking to myself more than anyone else. Speaking candidly, I sometimes feel like I deserve the grace I’m given; like I’ve earned it for having acted in a way that He would appreciate, most of the time. But the truth is that even our righteousness is like filthy rags compared to Yahweh’s righteousness (Is 64:6). And if even my righteousness is filthy rags before Him, why should I think that I deserve God’s grace?
14 Behold, the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies. 15 He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole that he has made. 16 His mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own skull his violence descends.
This is the reward of the wicked, that the malice you dole out will be given back to you in the end. In verse 15 there’s imagery of the wicked digging a pit that he himself has dug out. I can’t help but think of the pit that Joseph was thrown into by his brothers. Now, that’s where the similarity ends. Joseph had nothing to do with digging out that pit, but I think of him being thrown in that pit and everything that occurred to him afterward. If all of that is what awaits the wicked, does any of us really want to deal with the pit, let alone the being the servant, or being the prisoner?
17 I will give to the LORD the thanks due to his righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the LORD, the Most High.
Through all of this; through David hanging his future on his own righteousness (which I’m not prepared to do for my own righteousness) and through his being falsely accused by the wicked and unrighteous who are pursuing him, he still holds the righteousness of the LORD as the reason He should be praised.
My prayer is that the Father will give me this attitude. I wholeheartedly want to see the world this way. None of my good deeds are worth the grace and love that I’m given, but that doesn’t mean that I’ll stop doing them. We do these works because we’re not deserving of the grace and love we’re given. We do these good deeds because the Father first loved us. And what better way to show your love for someone than by doing the things they like.
I hope that this has been a blessing to you. We’ll be back again with our next look at the Psalms real soon.
Have a blessed day and Shalom!
This was originally posted on my personal blog at the following address:
http://thepoiema.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-psalms-7-in-you-do-i-take-refuge.html