The Phil Files

How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
  How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
    and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
  How long will my enemy triumph over me?

  Look on me and answer, LORD my God.
    Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
  and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
    and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

  But I trust in your unfailing love;
    my heart rejoices in your salvation.
  I will sing the LORD’s praise,
    for he has been good to me.

\o/ — Comments Psalm 13: I trust in Your unfailing love! — \o/

The last enemy to be destroyed is death (1 Corinthians 15:26). Those were the apostle Paul’s words and they resonate in my heart today as I read this Psalm.

You see, today my heart is on a dear friend wrestling with terminal cancer. I say this Psalm for this friend. I cry out to God for a miracle. I pray for deliverance. Whether the psalmist’s original intentions were to speak of physical, military, or political enemies, my heart is drawn to our last, powerful, vicious enemy — death. I don’t want death to triumph in this case … not now … not with my friend.

I know there are times when death is welcome — when death is the doorway to God’s presence and God’s peace and escape from suffering and sickness. But, in a world of decay and mortality, where each of us is held by a fragile thread to life and family and friends, death is still an enemy. The Holy Spirit declares that Jesus came to liberate us from our fear of death’s tyrannical rule (Hebrews 2:14). So today, dear God, I pray this Psalm and ask for your deliverance of my friend.

Yet, dear God, I do trust in your unfailing love and I know the salvation that you have already lavished down on my friend. I know, dear Abba, that you have done so many great things for me and those that I love. I trust in Your goodness and Your care. I rest my heart in the assurance that Your deliverance will come — whether from death to good health or through death into Your presence (Philippians 1:19-23).

So as I listen to the birds of morning sing their songs, my heart wells up with joy and a song stirs in my heart, too. I praise you, O LORD, for You are good … You are my God … and Your goodness overflows and blesses me.

“What would good people do if the wicked destroyed all that is good?”

The psalmist, David, asks this question in Psalm 11:3 (ERV). However, all three psalms in our reading today (Psalms 10-12) focus on this same basic issue. Those who scorn the will and the way of God have not only abandoned the poor, the needy, the helpless, the orphan, and the good people, but they also have abused, taken advantage of, and brought injustice upon them. They assume God doesn’t care, if of course, any god is there at all. They bring evil on the powerless and curse God on whom these helpless call.

//Inspiration: Psalm 12:7-8 (ERV)
LORD, take care of the helpless. Protect them forever from the wicked people in this world. The wicked are all around us, and everyone thinks evil is something to be praised!

//Incarnation:
When your heart is focused on something and go back and read familiar Scriptures, an amazing thing happens: you see things emphasized in God’s word you never noticed before. As my heart has turned to the poor in recent days, especially the poor children of Uganda, I have been overwhelmed at what God has been saying to me from the Gospel of Luke and now the Psalms. I don’t know if this is part of His plan to etch His will on my heart. Some of my Heartlight.com friends would call this not a coincidence, but a “Godincidence”!) Or this could simply be that my eyes are open to read the Scripture from another vantage point. All I know is that my eyes have been opened and that God has etched some newly discovered truths deep in my heart. Those who suffer from evil in both high and low places of authority are always the poor, the helpless, and the children. So we do cry out to God. And I will let my prayer, my invitation to God tonight be the words of the psalmist.

//Invitation:
LORD, get up and do something. God, punish those who are wicked. Don’t forget those who are poor and helpless. And, dear Father, I pledge to do what I can to help those who are forgotten, abandoned, and abused in Your name. Through Jesus I pledge this and ask for Your intervention in our world. Amen.