Scripture Passage
Rescue me, O LORD, from liars
and from all deceitful people.
(Psalm 120:2 NLT)
Observation
Today’s reading took me back to my bookshelf to retrieve a book I’ve mentioned before but, I think, not opened in years. Eugene Peterson’s A Long Obedience in the Same Direction gave me an appreciation for the psalms of ascent I have not forgotten. Psalm 120 is one of those psalms—a psalm of discipleship…a psalm for one that is engaging a spiritual journey towards the City of God (literally or metaphorically).
I quote Eugene Peterson directly:
A person has to be thoroughly disgusted with the way things are to find the motivation to set out on the Christian way. As long as we think that the next election might eliminate crime and establish justice or another scientific breakthrough might save the environment or another pay raise might push us over the edge of anxiety into a life of tranquility, we are not likely to risk the arduous uncertainties of the life of faith. A person has to get fed up with the ways of the world before he, before she, acquires an appetite for the world of grace.
Psalm 120 is the song of such a person, sick with the lies and crippled with the hate… We have been told the lie ever since we can remember: that human beings are basically nice and good. Everyone is born equal and innocent and self-sufficient. The world is a pleasant, harmless place. We are born free. If we are in chains now, it is someone’s fault, and we can correct it with just a little more intelligence or effort or time. (pp 21-22)
Psalm 120 declares the opposite. Psalm 120 declares that we are in need of rescue—that we cannot save ourselves.
Rescue me, O LORD, from liars
and from all deceitful people.
(Psalm 120:2 NLT)
I read that…I think of the broken condition of the whole of humanity…I think of my own broken condition…and I long to re-engage a journey of faith. “Rescue me, O Lord, from liars and from all deceitful people”—most of all, I pray, from myself!
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2 comments:
I have never spent a lot of time with Psalm 120...but after reading your blog today....wow...it is really powerful...what brings to my mind is the verse, "I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out." Romans 7:18
Only by grace are we transformed...our hearts are bent on evil from our youth..."God, give me grace that I might turn my heart all of the way towards You"..."Save me, O LORD, from lying lips and from deceitful tongues." Psalm 120:2
Wow! This is a good word and something that the Lord has been impressing on me for awhile. I have the tendency to get so discouraged when I come across a person who is mean or rude or just plain dispicable. I sometimes cry to think that people like this exist and lose a little hope that there are good people in the world. My very prayer could be this one in Psalm, to 'rescue me, O Lord, from liars and from all deceitful people.' Maybe I'm a little sensitive, (okay, maybe alot sensitive) in this area. I'm sure that God has told me that it's okay to "hate" the evil in this world. I can be in it but not of it. That doesn't mean I won't fail or make mistakes. I have to stay humbled and remember all that is good in me is from God and the good that people see is Jesus living in me; and when I look at someone who has been transformed by the blood of the Lamb, I will be able to see Jesus in them. I don't know of the references in the bible right now to back this up but I know it's in there and His word is hidden in my heart.
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