March 11 – Pray

In the mornings I use a Daily Prayer App on my phone. Guiding me through a series of prayers and scripture readings, it is a wonderful way to greet the new day. Words like, “In the tender compassion of our God, the dawn from on high shall break upon us” (Luke 1:78) and “Satisfy us with your love in the morning, and we will live this day in joy and praise” (Psalm 90:14) make tangible the connection between God’s gifts and this new day unwrapping before us.

But prayer is multifaceted. Usually, in the mix with everything else, there is a psalm of lament.

These psalms puzzle me. I read them, but I have trouble identifying with them. And it is not because I am a Pollyanna who sees life through rose-tinted glasses or a Pangloss proclaiming, “All is for the best!” It’s because I don’t see myself as having enemies.

The lament psalms cry out against Israel’s enemies, the people surrounding them who want to destroy them. But if I were to personalize this, thinking that the people around me want to destroy me, I would be suffering from paranoia. It just isn’t happening.

On occasion, it occurs to me to look at these psalms from a national perspective – a nation at war. On 9/11 we felt we were surrounded by people who wanted to destroy us, just as Israel did. But then I remember we are a powerful nation who fights back and subdues. We swipe our giant paw at the enemy; we have the ability to crush them with ease. No need to call on God to help us with that.

From where I am sitting, I cannot sing a song of lament about my enemies that want to destroy me.

A few people have told me they found usefulness in these psalms when they were receiving treatment for cancer. As they prayed these psalms of lament they would visualize the cancer cells as the enemy, asking God to demolish them.

But I just don’t have anything to bring to this that makes me want to pray, “Destroy my enemies, O God; bring them down, consume them in wrath. They are after me and it is, by no means, my fault!”

I cannot personify this notion of evil, breaking the world into the good ones and the bad ones, the chosen and the rejected, the loved and the hated.

But perhaps I need a new perspective.

The people who sang this song of lament were not feeling particularly loved, were they? At this stage they might even have wondered if they really were God’s people. They might have wondered if God was still capable of recognizing good from bad, because there was a whole lot of bad going down.

The psalmist says, “Wake up, mighty God! Set things aright! Take down what is evil and bring relief to the innocent suffering.” 

In other words, If I can see this is messed up, then I know you can, too, God. Are you sleeping? Distracted? Otherwise occupied? I know you are strong enough to crush it. I know you are good enough to save us. I know you can do this! Set this right, stand over my enemies in triumph –

But, the psalmist adds, “Do not kill them, or my people may forget” (Psalm 59:11).

It might sound crazy, God, but leave this evil out there. As hateful as it is, as much as it hurts, leave it be –

Lest we, ourselves, ever fail to recognize the difference between good and bad. O God, don’t let us forget. Could there be anything worse than not being able to tell the difference between good and bad?

As it is, we humans struggle with that. and lately, it seems like we have grown so attached to our own particular version of what’s good and what’s bad. We etch such hard lines around them, we end up distorting them. Dare I say – there is evil in that.

Perhaps the psalms of lament can help me pray, after all. For now, they simply help me to remember there is evil all around me. Do not let me fail to recognize it. Do not let it overtake me.