Psalm 12
Help O Lord for good men have vanished
truth has gone from the sons of men
Falsehood they speak one to another
with lying lips with a false heart
May the Lord destroy all lying lips
the tongue that speaks high-sounding words
Those who say Our tongue is our strength
our lips are our own who is our master
For the poor who are oppressed and the needy who groan
I myself will arise says the Lord
I will grant them the salvation for which they thirst
The words of the Lord are words without alloy
silver from the furnace seven times refined
It is you O Lord who will take us in your care
and protect us forever from this generation
See how the wicked prowl on every side
while worthless things are prized highly by the sons of men*
The beautiful thing about the Psalms, or rather the most beautiful thing, is that it they are perfect illustrations of how we can go to God in prayer and song in ANY mood. Too often we talk about 'approaching the throne' in the right attitude, one of worship and servitude, but David and the other Psalmists do not hold back other attitudes from God. The fact of the matter is that God can handle our joy, our gratitude, our obedience, our anger, our disgust, our fear, our jubilation, our lust, our defiance, and any other thing that we feel, Remember, God is first a Creator and among a host of other things God created you and among a host of aspects of you God created your capacity to feel and the range of emotions you can experience and God can handle all that he has created.
So David comes to God in a state of disgust about the world around him, he sees people who are taking what they want from who they want when they want and how they want. He sees people in power who are using those they should be serving. He sees people who are chasing after things best left alone. He sees all this and at the same time it seems as if all the good people are gone, because none of them are speaking up for the oppressed, none of them are standing up for those without a voice. In the midst of this disgust he goes to God and pleads for a change, any change, any sign that at least God is paying attention. And he clings to that hope, that God has not missed what is going on and that God will not allow it to continue.
+ Do you allow yourself to pray from whatever headspace you happen to be in or do you feel you must neuter your emotions for God's ear? How does that effect your prayer life? your worship life?
+ Is there any way in which you might be able to 'approach the throne' when you are in a less than fine attitude?
[* I changed that last line a little, in the Abbey Psalter it reads 'while the worthless are prized highly by the sons of men,' but that line didn't make much sense to me because I was thinking of it as 'the worthless people' which are prized highly by God. After looking at a couple other translations it seems clear to me that it is not talking about people but rather 'things' hence I rewrote it to give a clearer reading.]
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