An Unprayable Psalm?
I will admit: I love the Psalms.
OK, so maybe that isn’t so shocking of an admission. It’s about as unexpected as a Miss America candidate announcing she is against poverty and for world peace. But my love for the Psalms rises from deep inside of me. I find them most helpful in guiding my prayer. I love it when I open this centuries old document and find my voice in its pages, crying to God out of the depths.
One of my favorite moments in my devotions each week is when I open the Psalms to see what Psalm I will be living in for the next seven days. Both of my favorite devotional guides, Job and Shawchucks A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants and Benson and Benson’s Disciplines for the Inner Life feature one Psalm per week. It exciting to come each Monday morning and see what Psalm it will be this week, because it is always surprising to see the way God speaks into my life through that song.
Well, it usually is.
This week, I was directed to Psalm 26. With eager anticipation I opened my Bible and began to read.
Psalm 26
Of David.
1 Vindicate me, O LORD,
for I have led a blameless life;
I have trusted in the LORD
without wavering. (all quotations from the NIV)
Already I knew I had a problem. I couldn’t get past that first verse.
I’m supposed to pray “Vindicate me, because I’ve led a blameless life of unwavering trust”?
It just wasn’t happening. All the well-what-about’s kept getting in the way.
Well, what about that one time when you did…
Well, what about that thing you’re struggling with…
Well, what about the way you tend to take things into your own hands…
And it only got worse from there, as my eye drifted from the speedbump of verse one to the little brown tourist information sign that preceded it: ”Of David.”
Suddenly there were a lot more well-what-about’s getting in the way.
Well, what about the census?
Well, what about Bathsheeba, let alone poor Uriah?
Well, what about Absalom?
Of course, then the voice in my head was reminding me of another passage of scripture, this time from the beginning of Romans 2, and I knew I couldn’t make this Psalm about David, when it was supposed to be about me. But a lot of good that did me…
I wish I could tell you I have it worked out.
I have managed to find some comfort, challenge and direction in some of the rest of the Psalm. Verses 2 and 3 challenge me:
Test me, O LORD, and try me,
examine my heart and my mind;
for your love is ever before me,
and I walk continually in your truth.
Verses 6 through 8 inspire me.
I wash my hands in innocence,
and go about your altar, O LORD,
proclaiming aloud your praise
and telling of all your wonderful deeds.
I love the house where you live, O LORD,
the place where your glory dwells.
But every day I open up to Psalm 26, and still get all tripped up by that first verse.
I’ve tried lots of different translations. None have made that verse any more prayable for me.
I’ve started praying that God would help me get to the place in my life where I can pray that prayer with freedom and confidence. But for the time being, Psalm 26:1 still is a struggle for me.
It has taught me the importance of the discipline of praying even difficult prayers and of living in a scripture that’s tough to get comfortable in.
But in the meantime, right or wrong, I’m looking forward to Monday when I’m allowed to move to a new Psalm.
Of course, with my luck it will probably be Psalm 17…
3 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
great entry. it’s nice to be reminded that the Scripture doesn’t always fit our lives so nicely and the “interpretation” and application is not always so simple.
also, great way to leave us hanging to force us to read Psalm 17.
There’s also another view — that the Psalms are about Jesus, not about us.
There are lots of other views, but that doesn’t make them right. ;-)
I can’t help but notice that Rev. Collins makes several claims about the nature of the Old Testament promises, yet does not back up those claims with any scriptural evidence. Having read Psalm 26, it would take some pretty strong evidence to convince me that that Psalm was written about Jesus, and that it was not the personal prayer of David crying out to God. Psalm 26 may apply to Jesus, but to say it applies only to Jesus is a very different argument.
I would make the same criticism of Rev. Collins argument from Matthew 4. Yes, Jesus’ response to the temple-top temptation was a tacit agreement that Psalm 91 applied to him. It was not, however, a declaration that it does not apply to me as well. Rather it was a repudiation of the idea that in order to prove Psalm 91 applies to me I need to go base jumping sans parachute.