Weaponizing Prayer
"Do not keep silent, O God of my praise! For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful have opened against me; They have spoken against me with a lying tongue." Psalm 109:1-2, New King James Version
"People in what feels like a hostile environment," discerns David Brooks in a New York Times editorial from September 1, 2017, "often reduce their many affiliations down to just one simple one, which they weaponize and defend to the hilt."
Brooks sees this narrowing sense of self undermining a desirable consensus, and he's right. There is biblical benefit in being able to speak one another's dialect to build a sense of community in order for meaningful sharing of the Gospel to take place. Yet, the psalmist penning Psalm 109:1-2 under extreme duress helps us to see the benefit in the streamlining that Brooks describes. The psalmist reduces life to its essentials as he, in effect, weaponizes his most important identity as a person of prayer.
"Do not keep silent," is his prayerful plea to God opening Psalm 109:1. The psalmist recognizes there is an active and perilous competition for his ears and his mind. If God does not actively and forcefully enter the competition in a way that will drown out the noise, the psalmist knows his hope of maintaining a worshipful attitude is lost. His candor is refreshing, simultaneously dependent and bold. If You don't speak up in the here and now, Lord, I won't hear.
The archive of God's good acts in his past or in Scripture, he seems to know, will not compete effectively with the challenges of noise, danger, and hurry he is facing this very minute. The models, then, active, honest prayer. Meanwhile, God, in preserving this for the ages reassures us that He hears such urgent requests for His character be made evident right here and right now. Weaponized identity as a person of prayer, first and foremost, admits to present weakness.
Having sounded the alarm, THEN the psalmist reflects on habits and precedent. To Whom is he crying out? He is crying out, he says, to, "God of my praise." He and God have been here before. He has, in the memorable metaphor of the Christian music group Tenth Avenue North's "I Confess," seen the lines on God's face. This isn't their time for getting acquainted, although God proves Himself open in many other places to initiating relationship. See Moses and the burning bush.
Although the psalmist recognizes God must speak up if the psalmist is to remain God-focused and spiritually solvent, he also considers the habits God has already given the psalmist the steadfastness to maintain. He hears God's praise because at the discipline he has insisted on God's praise coming out of his own mouth. As with him, nothing shapes or stains our own thinking as what we form in our own words, especially over time. In time of battle, the psalmist weaponizes experience as a person of prayer by drawing from an arsenal of evidence that God has proven praiseworthy in his own life.
Grounded in what he needs to hear from God and what he already has, all else is noise filtered as noise. "For," he says by way of transition in order to compare Whom he knows to be true to whom he already knows before they speak to be false, "the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful have opened against me." There is reassurance here also for someone weaponizing his or her singular identity as a person of prayer in peril.
It's the sort of reassurance Jesus embodies for the Christian when He tells His own accusers in Jon 8:44, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it." As the person of Christian prayer serves One Who had the temerity to say, "Liars lie, and I'm not surprised by the particulars," we can hand over the jagged edges of particular lies to One Who has experience knowing they are coming.
Having established that lying, or whatever sin of others particularly stings us in the moment that brings us to prayer, is the norm for those not committed to Christ, we weaponize prayer by bringing Exhibit A, Exhibit B, or Exhibit Z that all is not yet right in the world. The psalmist faithfully follows through with this in closing Psalm 109:2. "They have spoken against me with a lying tongue," he says.
Not only have I known them to be sinners in contrast to Your perfection in doing what You say You will do, Lord, but their actions as they touch my life continue to prove that You haven't done all You can and all You will yet. We weaponize, simplify, insist on, strip down to our identity as people in prayer who are in a battle as real as any with bullets when we lineup what we see, and hear, and feel with what we know of the character of God, and wait upon Him to take action.
"People in what feels like a hostile environment," discerns David Brooks in a New York Times editorial from September 1, 2017, "often reduce their many affiliations down to just one simple one, which they weaponize and defend to the hilt."
Brooks sees this narrowing sense of self undermining a desirable consensus, and he's right. There is biblical benefit in being able to speak one another's dialect to build a sense of community in order for meaningful sharing of the Gospel to take place. Yet, the psalmist penning Psalm 109:1-2 under extreme duress helps us to see the benefit in the streamlining that Brooks describes. The psalmist reduces life to its essentials as he, in effect, weaponizes his most important identity as a person of prayer.
"Do not keep silent," is his prayerful plea to God opening Psalm 109:1. The psalmist recognizes there is an active and perilous competition for his ears and his mind. If God does not actively and forcefully enter the competition in a way that will drown out the noise, the psalmist knows his hope of maintaining a worshipful attitude is lost. His candor is refreshing, simultaneously dependent and bold. If You don't speak up in the here and now, Lord, I won't hear.
The archive of God's good acts in his past or in Scripture, he seems to know, will not compete effectively with the challenges of noise, danger, and hurry he is facing this very minute. The models, then, active, honest prayer. Meanwhile, God, in preserving this for the ages reassures us that He hears such urgent requests for His character be made evident right here and right now. Weaponized identity as a person of prayer, first and foremost, admits to present weakness.
Having sounded the alarm, THEN the psalmist reflects on habits and precedent. To Whom is he crying out? He is crying out, he says, to, "God of my praise." He and God have been here before. He has, in the memorable metaphor of the Christian music group Tenth Avenue North's "I Confess," seen the lines on God's face. This isn't their time for getting acquainted, although God proves Himself open in many other places to initiating relationship. See Moses and the burning bush.
Although the psalmist recognizes God must speak up if the psalmist is to remain God-focused and spiritually solvent, he also considers the habits God has already given the psalmist the steadfastness to maintain. He hears God's praise because at the discipline he has insisted on God's praise coming out of his own mouth. As with him, nothing shapes or stains our own thinking as what we form in our own words, especially over time. In time of battle, the psalmist weaponizes experience as a person of prayer by drawing from an arsenal of evidence that God has proven praiseworthy in his own life.
Grounded in what he needs to hear from God and what he already has, all else is noise filtered as noise. "For," he says by way of transition in order to compare Whom he knows to be true to whom he already knows before they speak to be false, "the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful have opened against me." There is reassurance here also for someone weaponizing his or her singular identity as a person of prayer in peril.
It's the sort of reassurance Jesus embodies for the Christian when He tells His own accusers in Jon 8:44, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it." As the person of Christian prayer serves One Who had the temerity to say, "Liars lie, and I'm not surprised by the particulars," we can hand over the jagged edges of particular lies to One Who has experience knowing they are coming.
Having established that lying, or whatever sin of others particularly stings us in the moment that brings us to prayer, is the norm for those not committed to Christ, we weaponize prayer by bringing Exhibit A, Exhibit B, or Exhibit Z that all is not yet right in the world. The psalmist faithfully follows through with this in closing Psalm 109:2. "They have spoken against me with a lying tongue," he says.
Not only have I known them to be sinners in contrast to Your perfection in doing what You say You will do, Lord, but their actions as they touch my life continue to prove that You haven't done all You can and all You will yet. We weaponize, simplify, insist on, strip down to our identity as people in prayer who are in a battle as real as any with bullets when we lineup what we see, and hear, and feel with what we know of the character of God, and wait upon Him to take action.
Comments
Post a Comment