Psalm 55 - Enemies Within

            This psalm deals with enemies within—both enemies within the psalmist’s circle of friendship and enemies (attitudes) within himself.  Just as Psalm 3 dealt with David’s internal and external struggle at the rebellion of his son Absalom, so Psalm 55 also expresses David’s grief over the betrayal of a close friend.  

                 The Targum, an Aramaic translation of the Hebrew scriptures, names the offending character of Psalm 55 as Ahithophel.  The Holman Bible Dictionary gives the following information on this this Old Testament Judas:

 

AHITHOPHEL

(uh hihth' oh fehl) Personal name meaning, “brother of folly” if it is not a scribal attempt to hide an original name including a Canaanite god such as Ahibaal. See Jerubbaal. David's counselor who joined Absalom's revolt against King David (2 Samuel 15:12). David prayed that his counsel might be turned to foolishness (2 Samuel 15:31) and commissioned the faithful Hushai to help Zadok and Abiathar, the priests, counteract the counsel of Ahithophel. Ahithophel led Absalom to show his rebellion was for real by taking over his father's concubines (2 Samuel 16:15-23). Ahithophel's counsel was famous as being equal to the word of God (2 Samuel 16:23). Hushai, however, persuaded Absalom not to follow Ahithophel's military advice (2 Samuel 17:1), this being God's work (2 Samuel 17:14). Disgraced, Ahithophel returned home to Giloh, put his house in order, and hanged himself (2 Samuel 17:23). He may have been the grandfather of Bathsheba, David's partner in sin and wife (2 Samuel 11:3; 2 Samuel 23:34).[1]

            Perhaps Psalm 55 will give us some insight into the spiritual warfare we deal with, when we are betrayed by a friend.  The psalmist writes:

 

 ¹ Listen to my prayer, O God,
   do not ignore my plea;
 ² hear me and answer me.
My thoughts trouble me and I am distraught 

            The NIV that I have used here does not do justice to David’s feelings.  The King James Version says, “I mourn in my complaint, and make a noise.”  The New King James Version reads, “I am restless in my complaint, and moan noisily,” while Young’s renders it, “I mourn in my meditation, and make a noise,”  The Hebrew word for this noise is “huwm.”  Perhaps it would not be an unfair translation to say, “In my meditation, all I can do is hum.”  You’ve probably been there before, when your prayers turn to groanings because of your grief.  What was creating such grief in David’s spirit?  Verse 3 says he is in this state…

 ³ because of what my enemy is saying,
   because of the threats of the wicked;
for they bring down suffering on me
   and assail me in their anger. 

            It’s important to take responsibility for our own thoughts.  Jesus emphasized the importance of a pure thought life when He said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God (Matthew 5:8).  The entire Sermon on the Mount seems to be about the believer’s inner life, and emphasizes that attitude really does matter.  Attitude reflects the choices a person makes in his head, to focus on one thing or another.  When someone chooses to focus on the positive, then good things overflow in her life.  When a person chooses to focus on the negative, then evil things overflow in his life. 

            There are, however, times when thoughts just show up on their own.  They seem to come from a source outside ourselves.  The Spirit of God can speak to us in this way, surprising and blessing us by divine love.  The enemy of our souls can also speak directly to our spirits, filling our hearts with wickedness and fear.  David ‘s next words show that he has been spiritually attacked with thoughts and attitudes that have come from outside himself:

 ⁴ My heart is in anguish within me;
   the terrors of death have fallen on me.
⁵ Fear and trembling have beset me;
   horror has overwhelmed me. 

            I suggest to you that when evil thoughts appear unbidden, they may be an attack of the enemy.  Though we don’t often like to admit it, evil imaginings seem to “pop up,” seemingly on their own.  I knew one very sane woman loved her infant very much.  She told me that when he was at his colicky worst, sometimes she imagined herself doing violence to him.  She would never actually harm her child, but violent thoughts seemed to arise out of nowhere.  It wasn’t her—the thoughts seemed to come from outside her. 

            What did she do?  She employed the tactic that all believers need to learn.  We find this in 2 Corinthians 10:5, which says, “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”  Calling on the name of Jesus, she took her thoughts captive and turned instead to positive, prayerful, and faithful thoughts.  David does the same thing when he says:

⁶ I said, “Oh, that I had the wings of a dove!
   I would fly away and be at rest.
⁷ I would flee far away
   and stay in the desert;
⁸ I would hurry to my place of shelter,
   far from the tempest and storm.” 

            In verse 8, David calls this trouble, “the tempest and storm,” or (better) “windy tempest [and] storm.”  The word for “windy” is ruach, which can also be translated as “spirit.”  So David is talking about a “spirit-storm.”  Often, the negative emotions and thoughts that come our way feel like a demonically inspired spirit-storm, and David wants to escape it all.

            With these words, David has “gone to a happy place.”  In the Bible, the dove is associated with the Holy Spirit.  David indicates here that he wants the Spirit to carry him away so that he can be at rest.  He would flee far away and stay in the “desert.”  This word is better translated as “pasture.”  David mentally returns to the peace and calm of his shepherding days, when God made him lie down in green pastures, led him beside still waters, and restored his soul.  So many psalms refer to God as a hiding place and a shelter from the storm, that we cannot read verse 8 without realizing that David’s desire is to find his refuge in God Himself.

            In our previous study of Psalm 48, we learned that the believer is the Temple of God.  By extension, the believer is also analogous to Jerusalem, Zion, and other words used in the Psalms to describe the holy place of God.  Keep in mind that when David was writing his poetry, he was writing about real people, places, and events.  He was writing about his betrayal by Ahithophel.  But believers today can make the Psalms deeply personal by reading his sentiments a symbolic of their inner lives.  Verses 9-11 talk about violence in “the city,” which the believer can interpret as an internal conflict within their own souls.

 ⁹ Lord, confuse the wicked, confound their words,
   for I see violence and strife in the city.
¹⁰ Day and night they prowl about on its walls;
   malice and abuse are within it.
¹¹ Destructive forces are at work in the city;
   threats and lies never leave its streets. 

            At this point, I’d like to pause to make a radical suggestion.  Often, Hebrew people would anthropomorphize God, describing the “eyes of the Lord” or the “hand of God.”  Other figurative language describes God as a “consuming fire,” or calls the earth, “God’s footstool.”  For a moment I invite you to think creatively with me, imagining some of the words in verses 4-5, 9-11 as a bit more than what they seem to be on the surface.  All it requires are a few capital letters.

            Verse 4 refers to the “terrors of death” that have fallen on the psalmist.  Why not read this as a proper noun—“Terrors of Death?”  In verse 5, “fear and trembling have beset me; horror has overwhelmed me.”  If we take these concepts and capitalize them into proper names, then “Fear and Trembling have beset me, Horror has overwhelmed me.”  By doing this, we can see these emotions for what they truly are—the servants of Satan.  The New Living Translation renders 1 Samuel 16:14 as, “Now the Spirit of the LORD had left Saul, and the LORD sent a tormenting spirit that filled him with depression and fear.”  Certainly, sometimes (at least), emotions that plague God’s people can have spiritual reality behind them—demonic personalities that have your destruction as their main goal.  Could they have names like Terror of Death, Fear, Trembling, and Horror?  What else would demons be named?

            In verse 9, Violence and Strife are also in the city, prowling on its walls.  Malice is also there, with his friend Abuse.  These are Satan’s special forces operatives—his “Destructive Forces.”  A demon named Threats has joined their ranks, along with another called Lies.  This naming of demons may sound strange to you, but it is not unheard of in Hebrew literature.  Leviticus 16:6-8 mentions a demon named Azazel.  Isaiah 34:8-14 says, “"The land shall become burning pitch Thorns shall grow over its strongholds It shall be the haunt of jackals yea there shall the night hag alight and find for herself a resting place." What is the “night hag?”  The Hebrew word is liyliyth.  The English equivalent is “Lilith,” who is a demon of Hebrew folklore.[2]  The commonly-used translation, “screech owl” doesn’t do the Hebrew justice.  Certainly names like “Satan,” “Apollyon,” and “Abaddon” are familiar to us, but what about the demon names that are hidden in the text of Psalm 91:5-6, “You will not be afraid of the Terror by Night, or of the Arrow-That-Flies-by-Day; Of the Pestilence-That-Stalks-in-Darkness, or of the Destruction-That-Lays-Waste-at-Noon.”  Here, the capital letters are mine, but these words given as names are substantiated in demology.[3]

            Whether the reader interprets these as literal names of actual demons is not as important to me as the reader’s understanding that terror of death, fear, trembling, horror, violence, and strife—these things are demonic, and their source is the Evil One.  When these influences, whether literal demons or metaphorical concepts, crawl through the cities of our souls, they leave destruction in their path.  The believer is justified in praying against such enemies, “Lord, confuse the wicked, confound their words (verse 9).”

            In the next verses, David expresses his despair that his betrayer was once his friend and advisor. 

 ¹² If an enemy were insulting me,
   I could endure it;
if a foe were rising against me,
   I could hide.
¹³ But it is you, a man like myself,
   my companion, my close friend,
¹⁴ with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship
   at the house of God,
as we walked about
   among the worshipers…

²⁰ My companion attacks his friends;
   he violates his covenant.
²¹ His talk is smooth as butter,
   yet war is in his heart;
his words are more soothing than oil,
   yet they are drawn swords. 

            I believe that David understands the difference between the physical man who betrayed him, and the powers and principalities that were behind him.  Ephesians 6:12 says, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”  He shifts from discussing his “friend,” to talking about his “enemies.”  His understanding that these enemies are demons rather than human is indicated by his belief that they are able to “go down alive to the realm of the dead,” (v. 15) because that place of evil seems to be their natural habitation.

                                ¹⁵ Let death take my enemies by surprise;
   let them go down alive to the realm of the dead,
   for evil finds lodging among them.

How can David get victory in his life?  How can he experience God’s blessing again, even though friends have turned to enemies and spiritual foes have rallied against him?  How can you experience victory in the spiritual warfare that engages you?  The next verses give the answer:

 ¹⁶ As for me, I call to God,
   and the LORD saves me.
¹⁷ Evening, morning and noon
   I cry out in distress,
   and he hears my voice.
¹⁸ He rescues me unharmed
   from the battle waged against me,
   even though many oppose me.
¹⁹ God, who is enthroned from of old,
   who does not change—
he will hear them and humble them,
   because they have no fear of God…

  ²² Cast your cares on the LORD
   and he will sustain you;
he will never let
   the righteous be shaken.
²³ But you, God, will bring down the wicked
   into the pit of decay;
the bloodthirsty and deceitful
   will not live out half their days.

   But as for me, I trust in you. 

Call out to God, who hears your distress.  He will hear you and rescue you unharmed from the battle that wages against you.  Remember that God is enthroned from of old, meaning that he doesn’t change.  He is not afraid of defeat, because defeat is impossible for him.  Those who have no fear of God will learn to fear him, and will be humbled.

Verses 16-17 talk about prayer—the secret weapon.  David remembers that he doesn’t defeat the enemies within by his own might or by his own power, but by the Spirit of God.  “I call to God, and the LORD saves me” are the words he uses, giving credit where credit is due.  David names three times per day, evening, and morning, and noon, that he goes to God in prayer.  How often do you pray?  Do you have established prayer times, regularly scheduled appointments with God?  When you make and keep these appointed times, you strengthen your prayer life and ensure victory in spiritual warfare.            

In verse 22, the psalmist shifts from talking about his own situation, to exhorting the reader (you) about your own battles.  “Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.”  God will bring down the bloodthirsty and deceitful (whether we’re talking about people or demonic enemies, the principle still applies) and thrown them into the pit of decay. 

“But as form me, I trust in you.”  Now there’s a line you can hold onto!  Cast your cares on him, and he will sustain you.  David ends his psalm on spiritual warfare on a positive note, reminding the reader that God has already won the victory.  Though battles rage against God’s people, “he will never let the righteous be shaken.”

When it comes to spiritual warfare, the “enemy within” can mean three different things.  First, it could mean the human being that has offended, hurt, or betrayed you—a person you were once close to, a person within your own inner circle.  Or, the “enemy within” can be forces of spiritual wickedness that seek to control your life, demonic adversaries that want you defeated.  Or, the “enemy within” can be your own sinful thoughts and ungodly attitude.  In any case, David’s words bring victory.  Find hope in them today:

¹⁶ As for me, I call to God,
   and the LORD saves me.
¹⁷ Evening, morning and noon
   I cry out in distress,
   and he hears my voice.
¹⁸ He rescues me unharmed
   from the battle waged against me,
   even though many oppose me.

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[1] http://www.studylight.org/dic/hbd/view.cgi?number=T196.  February 12, 2012. 

[2] LILITH (Isa. 34:14; ultimately from Sumerian lil, "air," not Heb. layl(ah), "night") was originally a succubus, believed to cohabit with mortals, but in the Arslan Tash incantation…she is identified with the child-stealing demon, a character she retains in later folklore. The tradition that the name means "screech-owl" (in so many translations) reflects a very ancient association of birds, especially owls, with the demonic. (The Jewish Virtual Library http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0005_0_05094.html.  February 12, 2012)

[3] DEVER ("Pestilence") is the other demonic herald who marches with YHWH to battle (Hab. 3:5). Dever is also mentioned in Psalms 91:5–6: "Thou shalt not be afraid for the Terror (Paḥad) by night; Nor for the Arrow (Ḥeẓ) that flieth by day; Nor for the Pestilence (Dever) that walketh in the darkness; Nor for the Destruction (Ketev) that wasteth at noonday." Not only Dever but also the other words italicized above have been plausibly identified as names of demons. The "Arrow" is a familiar symbol in folklore, for disease or sudden pain, and Ketev (Qetev; cf. Deut. 32:24; Isa. 28:2; Hos. 13:14) is in this instance the personification of overpowering noonday heat, known also to Greek and Roman demonology.  (The Jewish Virtual Library.  http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0005_0_05094.html.  February 12, 2012)

Where is God When We Lose the Battle?

Psalm 44

 

            Inherent in warfare is the idea that there are winners and there are losers.  One of the most frustrating things in war is when both sides reach a stalemate.  In the trench warfare of the American Civil War and World War I, many soldiers wrote that they would sooner accept defeat than remain in a deadlock.  No one wanted to continue trading death for death, neither winning nor losing, moving back and forth to conquer a couple of miles of muddy ground.

            Sometimes the Christian life feels like a stalemate.  Some days you win the spiritual battles of temptation, or you see victory in the lives of the loved ones you’re supporting in prayer.  Other days, it seems like you’re losing ground.  At times you’re walking in God’s blessing, and then something happens that makes you feel utterly defeated.  Many believers wonder what makes the difference between win, lose, and draw.

            Like Job’s friends[1], the author of Psalm 44 seems to believe that if things are going well then God is favoring you, but if you’re suffering, God must have removed His favor.  If you’re blessed, it’s certainly because you have been faithful, but if you’ve been defeagted, you must deserve it in some way.  Yet this runs contrary to Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:45, that God “makes His run to rise on the evil and the good.”  He underscores this by saying, “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ‘Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you (Matthew 5:10-12).”  In many other passages, Jesus indicates that sometimes the righteous suffer, and sometimes the wicked seem to prosper.  But the psalmist doesn’t see it that way.

            Psalm 44 is a cry for God’s help.  Verses 1-3 recall the way God was always faithful to the psalmist’s ancestors.

1We have heard with our ears, O God;

our fathers have told us

what you did in their days,

in days long ago.

2With your hand you drove out the nations

and planted our fathers;

you crushed the peoples

and made our fathers flourish.

3It was not by their sword that they won the land,

nor did their arm bring them victory;

it was your right hand, your arm,

and the light of your face, for you loved them. 

            The psalmist remembers the days of God’s favor, when enemies were driven out by God’s hand.  He attests to God’s greatness, stating that it was not by human power that enemies were defeated.  Instead, it was God’s power that won their battles for them.

            In verses 4-8, the psalmist recognizes God’s sovereignty.
 

4You are my King and my God,

who decrees victories for Jacob.

5Through you we push back our enemies;

through your name we trample our foes.

6I do not trust in my bow,

my sword does not bring me victory;

7but you give us victory over our enemies,

you put our adversaries to shame.

8In God we make our boast all day long,

and we will praise your name forever.       Selah

 

            Verse 4 points out that all victories are by the decree of God, and not because of human action.  In verse 5, it is God who pushes enemies back, and it is through the Name of God that we trample on our foes.[2]  Note that verse 5 has God pushing back enemies in the present tense, and God’s people trampling foes in the present tense.  Verse 6 continues with the psalmist not trusting his bow in the present tense and his sword not bring present victory.  Verse 7 draws out the theme, with God giving victory and putting adversaries to shame—all the in the present tense.  God is God of the present, giving present victory in the battles of life.  Because of this (verse 8) we make our boast all day long, in present-tense, continual action.  This continues even into the future, for “we will praise your name forever.”  (And don’t forget to ponder this at the end of verse 8—selah.  Perhaps if we pondered this longer, we’d never need to go on to the rest of the psalm, for we’d have a better understanding.)

            Beginning with verse 9, we see a change in the psalmist’s attitude.  Where there used to be a sense of victory, all of a sudden, now that the story of his life has changed, his outlook has also shifted.  Military defeat has got him living in spiritual defeat.  Rather than remembering God’s faithfulness in the past, he wallows in self-pity.  Instead of glorifying God for His present deliverance and worshiping God and trusting God for the future, the psalmist allows the current troubles to cloud his faith.  Believers who engage in spiritual warfare need to remember that God is always faithful—in the good times and in the bad.  If Satan can keep you in a defeatist attitude, he has already won.  So the following verses are an example of how not to think, when things get tough.

9But now you have rejected and humbled us;

you no longer go out with our armies.

10You made us retreat before the enemy,

and our adversaries have plundered us.

11You gave us up to be devoured like sheep

and have scattered us among the nations.

12You sold your people for a pittance,

gaining nothing from their sale.

13You have made us a reproach to our neighbors,

the scorn and derision of those around us.

14You have made us a byword among the nations;

the peoples shake their heads at us.

15My disgrace is before me all day long,

and my face is covered with shame

16at the taunts of those who reproach and revile me,

because of the enemy, who is bent on revenge. 

            It’s natural to feel that God has abandoned you when things get tough.  Even Jesus felt abandoned when He hung on the cross, saying, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me (Mark 15:34)?”[3]  We have to understand verse 9, not as a statement of fact, but as a statement that this is how the psalmist feels.  God does not reject His people.  Psalm 94:1 says, “For the LORD will not abandon His people, nor will He forsake His inheritance.”

            In verse 10, the psalmist goes on to blame God for their retreat and for being plundered.  Verse 11 has God giving them up for devouring and scattering.  In verse 12 the psalmist accuses God of selling them into slavery, and bemoans the fact that God didn’t even get a good price for His people.  God bears the blame for the reproach, scorn, and derision the people feel in verses 13-16.  Surely the psalmist has not only lost a physical battle, but he is losing the spiritual battle as well.

            Often it’s difficult for the spiritual warrior to understand why painful things are happening to them, when they perceive that they have done nothing wrong to deserve it.  The psalmist indicates this kind of confusion in verses 17-22.

17All this happened to us,

though we had not forgotten you

or been false to your covenant.

18Our hearts had not turned back;

our feet had not strayed from your path.

19But you crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals

and covered us over with deep darkness.

20If we had forgotten the name of our God

or spread out our hands to a foreign god,

21would not God have discovered it,

since he knows the secrets of the heart?

22Yet for your sake we face death all day long;

we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. 

            It would make sense for God to judge violently if the people had been rebellious, but since the psalmist perceives the people to have been faithful, he can’t understand this.  Two answers may be important here.

            First, just because the psalmist doesn’t perceive the people’s sin, that doesn’t mean that they haven’t sinned.  In Joshua 7, Israel’s armies experienced defeat in battle, and they couldn’t understand why.  Eventually, God pointed to the reason:  One man’s sin had caused the nation’s defeat.  By human reasoning, Israel’s leaders would never have figured out that mystery.  It took the Spirit of God to reveal the truth.  Just because you don’t understand the reason God’s judgment falls, that doesn’t mean you aren’t experiencing God’s wrath.

            Second, we need to understand that sometimes painful things happen.  There’s nothing you can do about them, and you don’t need to figure out the reason why.  You may never understand why you’re suffering, but you can trust that God is working His purposes out.  Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”  In Romans 8:37, Paul in fact quotes Psalm 44:22, saying, “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”  But then he addresses the attitude of those who complain like this, contradicting the attitude of the psalmist.  “No,” he says.  “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

            Not long ago, I watched an interviewer try to back a celebrity preacher into a corner with the age-old question about suffering in the world:  There are three possibilities about God’s nature.  Either God is good and all-powerful, but doesn’t see the suffering in the world, and is therefore not omniscient; or the good God sees suffering and is powerless to do anything about it and therefore isn’t omnipotent; or God does both sees the suffering in the world, is able to do something about it, and yet does nothing about it, and is therefore not good.  “Which one is it?” asked the interviewer.  But the celebrity preacher refused to take the bait, quickly changing the subject.  In verses 23-26, the psalmist chooses to believe that God is good and that God is omnipotent, yet challenges God’s omniscience.  He believes that God is asleep.

23Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep?

Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever.

24Why do you hide your face

and forget our misery and oppression?

25We are brought down to the dust;

our bodies cling to the ground.

26Rise up and help us;

redeem us because of your unfailing love.

            The psalmist believes that if God would simply rouse Himself, lift His face from the celestial pillow, and see that we are brought down to the dust, then God would rise up to help us.  Verse 26 attests to the idea that God is able to help.  God’s unfailing love reflects divine goodness.  So the solution is simply for God to “rise up” from His slumber, breaking God’s sleepy ignorance, and for God to help.  This perspective can’t be further from the truth.  It is simply the way the psalmist feels, much like Jesus saying that He feels like God has abandoned Him when in fact God has not.  Psalm 121:3-4 says, “He who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep," 

             In my opinion, the evangelist made a mistake in evading the question.  The interviewer made the mistake of assuming that everything that is painful must also be bad.  In fact, God uses painful things in our life to bring good things about.  Paul gives radical encouragement in Romans 5:3-5 when he says, “And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

            The Christian life is warfare.  Some of the warfare is external.  We struggle with sickness, accidents, relationship conflicts, praying for the struggles of our loved ones, and many other things.  But most of our spiritual warfare is internal.  We face temptations to sin, spiritual depression, mental exhaustion, difficult decisions, doctrinal confusion, perplexing emotions, and a host of other soul-level enemies that wage war against us.  Sometimes we win these battles, and sometimes we lose.  Instead of blaming God for our troubles, we need to pray Psalm 44 as if it ends after the selah at the end of verse 8.  Selah means “pause and reflect.”  If you’re a Christian, then you need to pause and reflect on all that God has done for you in the past, so you can have faith that He will sustain you today and into the future.  Then you will be able to pray with the psalmist, “In God we make our boast all day long, and we will praise your name forever (44:8).”

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[1] For more on this, read the entire Biblical book of Job.

[2] See the Name of God, “Yah” in Psalm 68:1-4. 

[3] Many claim that in this verse, Jesus is stating fact, rather than feeling.  They often quote the first part of Habakkuk 1:13 (KJV), which says, “You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and can not look on iniquity.”  They say, “See, God had to turn His face away from Jesus, so in this instant, God did abandon Him.  They say this because they don’t want to believe that Jesus ever said anything that was factually inaccurate.  But Jesus was not in error when He said this.  He factually felt abandoned at this moment, and He was saying what He really felt.  Proponents of the view that God cannot look on evil should read the rest of Habakkuk 1:13, which says, “Why do you look upon them that deal treacherously, and hold your tongue when the wicked devours the man that is more righteous than he?”  Obviously, the psalmist knows that God can see the evil that’s going on.  His problem is trying to understand why God does nothing about it.  The truth is that God does see evil, and does do something about it.   Genesis 6:5-8 says, “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. The LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.”  God sees sin.  God judges sin.  But God also offers grace. 

Practicing the Presence, Or, Procrastinating Prayer?

Practicing the Presence,

Or

Procrastinating Prayer?

            When I invited my church family to covenant with me to pray for an hour a day, I was pleasantly surprised at how many accepted the challenge.  I’m sure that many were already praying for longer periods of time than I was.  I also know that many felt that this was a miserably long amount of time to spend rattling off a prayer list.  Frankly, I agreed with them, and encouraged them instead to spend that hour seeking God rather than seeking God’s blessings.    Still others came to me with what seemed like a pious objection to the idea of spending a quiet hour with Jesus:

            “I spend all day with Jesus,” they said.  “When I’m driving down the road, I’m thanking Him for the beautiful day.  When somebody at work tells me about some trouble they’re having, I take a second and ask God to bless them.  When my kids have me at wit’s end, I ask God for help.  Why do I need to spend a certain time alone in a chair, praying, when I can spend all day with the Lord?”

            It sounds good, on the surface.  I mean, who could argue with something like that?  Yes—we should spend all day with Jesus, in just the ways that have been stated above.  We should practice the day-in, day-out presence of God in our lives.  In fact, The Practice of the Presence of God is a wonderful work by Brother Lawrence, a must-read for anyone who wants to learn prayer.  In a nutshell, Brother Lawrence was a 17^th century Carmelite monk who hated his job working in the monastery’s kitchen.  It seemed an unspiritual drudgery to him, until one day he had a revelation:  Every dish and floor he scrubbed, he scrubbed for Jesus.  From that moment, he began to practice the presence of God everywhere he went.  He spent his days cooking with Jesus.  He passed his hours cleaning with the Master who cleansed his soul.  When he made his relationship with Jesus the main thing in his life, suddenly everything else took on new meaning.  Brother Lawrence writes, “We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed."  He also says:

"We should fix ourselves firmly in the presence of God by conversing all the time with Him...we should feed our soul with a lofty conception of God and from that derive great joy in being his. We should put life in our faith. We should give ourselves utterly to God in pure abandonment, in temporal and spiritual matters alike, and find contentment in the doing of His will,whether he takes us through sufferings or consolations.”

What a beautiful thing, to practice the presence of Almighty God!  If this is what my parishioners meant when they said they spent all day with Jesus, then I applaud them.  I wish every Christian would spend all day with Jesus in this way.  The problem comes not from practicing the presence of God, but when this form of prayer is the only form of prayer.

An exasperated husband once sat with me in my church office, talking through his marital problems.  “I don’t know what she wants,” he said.  “She says she wants more time with me, but I think I spend plenty of time with her.”

“What to do you spend time doing?” I asked.

“We do everything together,” he said.  “We go shopping together.  We work in the garden together.  We watch movies together.  We eat dinner together every night.  We talk together.”

“But have you ever tried listening together?” I asked.

Now that was something he’d never tried.  He’d spent so much time just doing the mundane things of life—and those were good things.  But while he passed the time with her, he’d busied himself with his own talking.  So much so that he never took the time to listen.

The same can be true when we practice the presence of God.  Brother Lawrence’s epiphany was just what he needed at the time—a fresh experience of the mundane world.  He needed Christ’s presence to sanctify everything in his life.  The practice of the presence of God called him to “pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17 NASB).”  Perhaps Lawrence’s spiritual awakening is just what you need—or maybe it has become an excuse for you to neglect a real quiet time with Jesus. 

Don’t get me wrong—I’m not saying you should compartmentalize your relationship with the Lord into one hour on your knees.  Lawrence was on to something, and so was Paul when he wrote to the Thessalonians.  But asking God to bless your efforts throughout the day is not enough.  There must be lengthy times of intimacy between the believer and the Lord. 

A husband and wife need to do more than run errands together.  They must gaze into one another’s eyes and speak sweet words of love.  They must truly be together—on a core level.  They must frequently share an embrace, a kiss, and make love with each other as God intended.  They must truly communicate with each other, and this involves both speaking and listening.  This is how marriages grow.  This is also how our relationship with God grows—when we take time to just be with Jesus.  Don’t just mutter a prayer to him throughout the day.  Share quiet time with Jesus.  Let Him hold you in His love.  Speak quiet words of worship and let Him respond with adoration. 

Practicing the presence of God can be an amazing way to spend your day—as long as it doesn’t become a way to procrastinate your prayer time.  Brother Lawrence would be horrified to find that his spiritual realization has given countless people an excuse to not have a daily time of prayer.   In The Living Reminder, Henri J.M. Nouwen says that believers should…

walk in [God’s] presence as Abraham did.  To walk in the presence of the Lord means to move forward in life in such a way that all our desires, thoughts, and actions are constantly guided by him.  When we walk in the Lord’s presence everything we see, hear, touch, or taste reminds us of him.  This is what is meant by a prayerful life.  It is not a life in which we say many prayers, but a life in which nothing, absolutely nothing, is done, said, or understood independently of him who is the origin and purpose of our existence.

            Walking in God’s presence also means sitting in God’s presence.  Praying without ceasing does not preclude your daily quiet time with Jesus.  As spouses must spend exclusive time together addition to all the errands, so the Christian must devote exclusive time to Jesus in addition to “ceaseless prayer” throughout the day.  The believer’s cry of relationship with the Lord should echo the words of Michael W. Smith’s song, “Draw Me Close.”

Draw me close to you
Never let me go
I lay it all down again
To hear you say that I'm your friend
You are my desire
No one else will do
Cause nothing else can take your place
To feel the warmth of your embrace
Help me find the way
Bring me back to you

You're all I want
You're all I've ever needed
You're all I want
Help me know you are near

           

Hymn to the Logos

 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.”  These are the opening words of the Gospel of John.  Whereas Matthew and Luke start with the beginning of Jesus’ earthly life, and Mark launches with the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, John goes back to the beginning of all things.

            Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”  The next chapter tells how God spoke everything into being.  God’s spoken word became the generative force from which everything emerged.  Drawing from God’s use of the spoken word for creation, John begins his gospel by pointing out that all things begin with the Word.  The Greek word that John uses for Word is Logos.  The Logos is more than just a word.  The Logos is The Word.  The Logos is God’s creative intention articulated to the universe.  The Logos is God Himself. 

            The more I pray, the more I realize that prayer isn’t about getting what you want.  Prayer is about God.  It’s about a growing intimacy with the Creator who spoke your name and called you into existence.  It’s about knowing God—knowing the Word.  So what’s the best way to know the Word?  Pray the Logos.  Pray the Word.

            John says that the Logos “was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.”[i]  Prayer is about seeking God “in the beginning.”  It’s about daily starting over with God, in a place of uncomplicated trust.  His mercies “are new every morning.”[ii]  Each day is a new creation.  Revelation 21:5 says, “He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’ Then he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’"  In His newness of constant creation and renewal, Jesus points us back to his Word which is faithful and true.[iii]

            It was The Word who spoke the world into being.  It was The Word who fashioned Adam and breathed into him the breath of life.  A rabbinical tradition says that when God breathed into Adam, God actually spoke the divine name, Yahweh, into the molded man so that he came to life.  It was one word that energized the first man, and it is still the Word that gives us life today.  “In him was life, and that life was the light of men.”[iv]  What could be more powerful than The Word?  What could be more simple than a word?  The Logos Prayer invokes the power and the simplicity of both.

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[i] John 1:2-4 NIV

[ii] Lamentations 3:23 NIV

[iii] Revelation 19:11

[iv] John 1:4 NIV

Public & Private Prayer

            Many people experience difficulty with their quiet time because their entire devotional life is based on public prayer.  In other words, they pray only at church, at the dinner table, or in prayer meetings.  Don’t get me wrong—there’s nothing wrong with public prayer.  In fact, author and prayer teacher Daniel Henderson makes the case that more is said in the Bible about public prayer than about private prayer.  Group prayer provides novices a way to learn prayer by listening to others.  It unites the hearts of believers and centers them on a common purpose.  Corporate prayer creates loving relationships in the body of Christ.  It invokes God’s presence, for God inhabits the praises of His people.[i]  But if public prayer is the only exposure you have to prayer, of course you’ll have difficulty imagining how a person might spend an hour doing that!

In his book Contemplative Prayer, Thomas Merton discusses the relationship between corporate and private prayer: 

Though liturgical prayer is by its nature more “active,” it may at any moment be illumined by contemplative grace.  And though private prayer may tend by its nature to greater personal spontaneity, it may also be accidentally more arid and laborious than communal worship, which is in any case particularly blessed by the presence of Christ in the mystery of the worshipping community…

The opposition between “official public prayer” and “spontaneous personal prayer” is largely a modern fiction.  And this is true whether “official” prayer is regarded as the “true” and “contemplative” prayer, or whether these adjectives are chosen to dignify personal devotion.[ii]

Merton’s stance is that public and private prayer are equal in nature, though they are often very different in function and form.  Public prayer focuses on the needs of the praying community, and their shared relationship to God.  While private prayer may still focus on the needs of others, the primary relationship to God is that of the person praying.  Public prayer tends to rely on eloquence in order to inspire the group to join in agreement, while private prayer rests rather on intimate expressions that might never be shown in a communal setting.  While there certainly are occasions when a public prayer might take on the tone of a private prayer, getting too personal in public isn’t generally advisable.  Similarly, while there are times when you may want to speak out loud to God in private prayer, addressing your Creator in private the same way you would in a public meeting might feel stilted and artificial.  These two types of prayer generally fall under the category, “separate but equal.”

            This blog is about your private quiet time with Jesus, not about public prayer.  Indeed, public prayer is an essential part of the healthy Christian life.  This blog’s focus on private devotion should by no means be understood as a statement against group prayer—that is simply a subject for a different work.  Henderson’s book, Fresh Encounters: Experiencing Transformation Through United Worship-Based Prayer, is an excellent resource for prayer group leaders and pastors who want to explore corporate prayer more deeply.  Henderson says that many Christians object to public prayer on the basis of Jesus’ warnings against hypocritical and ostentatious spirituality   In Matthew 6:5-6 (NIV), Jesus says:

“When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.  But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

The problem with this objection is that Jesus himself frequently prayed in public.  He wasn’t telling people that they should never pray in public, but instead intended them to make their prayer life a sacred thing between them and God.  Rather than putting on a show to impress others, Jesus’ followers should focus solely on their Lord, who is both the subject and object of their prayers.  When you pray in public, don’t do it to be seen by others.  Do it to have an experience of the living God. 

When given the choice between public displays of faith that draw attention to the worshipper, and private devotion where the worshipper can pour his heart out before God in seclusion, Jesus clearly prefers the latter.  He tells us to go to our room, close the door, and pray.  According to Henderson, the King James Version’s rendering of “inner room” as “closet” is a most unfortunate translation.  It would have worked in Shakespeare’s day, when the word meant a formal meeting place, but today it conjures images of kneeling among shoes and hanging coats.

In his book, How to Live a Holy Life, C.E. Orr writes about our need for the prayer closet.  Go inside, and shut the door, he says.  The problem is that…

Too many people leave the door open.  Prayer that feeds the soul must be offered with the door shut…God is in secret.  He is hidden from the world.  The world does not see him, neither knows him.  You can never reach God in your prayers unless you shut out the world.  Shutting the door means something more something more than closing the door of your literal closet.  Persons may enter the literal closet and close the door, and yet have the world in their hearts and thoughts.  Such have not closed the door in the true sense.

In the public assembly you must enter your closet when you pray, and shut the door, or your prayers will not avail with God.  You must talk from your heart to the heart of God.  Those assembled may hear your words, but they do not know the secret.  The secret is between your heart and the heart of God.  You scarcely hear your words.  You know and hear more of the speaking of heart.  There is a blessing in such praying; there is a joy that cannot be told.  Such prayer feeds the soul upon the divine life and lifts us in realms of light and happiness.  Thank God for the sweet privilege of secret intercourse with him.  O beloved, when you pray, enter into your closet, and be sure to close the door.[iii]

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[i] Psalm 22:3

[ii] Merton, Thomas.  Centering Prayer.  Herder and Herder:  New York.  1969.  Pg. 75.

[iii] Orr, C.E.  How to Live a Holy Life.  An eBook produced by Mark Zinthefer, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team