The Heart's Cry: Psalm 64

Psalm 64

David seems like such a black and white kind of guy, doesn't he? From reading the Psalms I get the feeling that there are two types of people, the righteous and the wicked. When I was younger I used to be that kind of guy too, there were the people who thought and believed like me who were the righteous, and then there was a lot more people in the world who didn't believe like I did and they were the wicked. It was simple and made the world an easy place to understand, but as I grew and, in my opinion, matured I came to realize that life is so very often not black and white but an untold number of shades of grey. The good guys are never only good, the bad guys are never only bad. And from this perspective people who only see in black and white scare me.

Now, it is possible that David saw more shades of grey than comes across in the Psalms, after all when you use less words to convey a point, which is part of the point of poetry and song, you must distill what you want to say to the bare minimum. So, it is possible that David saw shades of grey. I hope that's the case because if you know David you know that he was righteous and wicked. He was a man after God's own heart and he was a murdered and a rapist at worst or an adulterer at best.

I am currently reading the novel Joshua by Joseph Girzone and in it there is a place where Joshua is talking about grace and how it was meant to be a gift but that religious leaders [of which I am one] have shackled it with feelings of guilt because they have used it as a line in the sand deciding who was and was not worthy. I think that part of the reason that this has been the case is because we have attempted to make the world simple and easy, like it used to be and have forgotten that even we religious leaders are not always black and white but are within the same shades of grey as everyone else, I have my good attributes, and I have attributes that I would rather not have at all. I make good decisions and bad decisions. I am righteous and I am wicked. But, I am given grace from my God, not to show that I am worthy, but because I was worthy all along and have now simply begun to believe it myself.

+ Do you see the world in black and white or in shades of grey? Has that always been the case? If not what about your current viewpoint do you like or dislike?

+ Do you believe yourself to be worthy? Why or why not?