Lighthouse scribes

I’ve heard people joke about many of David’s Psalms being about one enemy or another. I do wonder, who do we take our challenges and problems to, if not to God? Family? Friends? The challenges that David faced weren’t those that could be fixed even if half the nation was on his side. We know that Saul chased him from one end of Israel to the other, while David had a large following. All of that support did not take away the experience, the fright, or the pain he felt every day. David knew that there was only one place to go for relief. He also knew that in that place, the problem didn’t necessarily go away. He had opportunities to make his problem go away in some cases (1 Samuel 24, 26), but he understood that not all seemingly good opportunities were God’s will.

The Bible doesn’t tell us who these enemies are in Psalms 5. In his opening words, we see that David is agonising, and he’s desperate for God’s attention. David never tries to act like he’s got things together. He prayed like he had everything to lose if God did not hear him. For I pray to no one but you… In the morning I will prepare [a prayer and a sacrifice] for You and watch and wait [for You to speak to my heart]. It’s heartwarming and instructive to read that the circumstances David went through did not alter his devotion to fellowship. David didn’t say, ‘Oh God, I am not having a great time, so I’ll speak to you later when I am in a better mood’, nor did he wake up in the morning and say, ‘God, work is killing me, my team members are seeking my downfall, I am in a dump, and I don’t feel like praying. Just help me out if you can’. No. David didn’t abandon the routine he’d built. He didn’t falter as the seasons became tougher. 

In the past, I’ve read chapters like this one and concluded that David didn’t quite love his enemies and was always praying for their destruction, but I have reread some with a better understanding. I’d say this isn’t quite so, or at least in this chapter, that’s not the case—David wasn’t pronouncing their damnation out of the blues. Verses 4-6 and 8-10 give us an idea of the kind of people David’s enemies were: wicked, proud, evil-doers, liars, murderers, lovers of deceit, treacherous, and violent. They remind us of the wicked spoken about in Psalms 1. They weren’t David’s enemies because he had a grudge. These people were not David’s enemies because David woke up one day and decided that their opinions deferred from his, and so they were now evil. They were enemies because they opposed God’s will and walked in defiance of God’s ways. It was God’s will to make David King over Israel, so trying to kill him was opposing that will. While God may not act in judgement immediately because He’s love and He desires that all men be saved (1 Timothy 2:4, Ezekiel 33:11), yet He’s just, and when the wicked do not turn to Him in repentance, they will experience the fullness of His wrath, eventually. As Christians, we understand that people don’t have to be violent and evil-doers to experience God’s wrath (Romans 2:5), and even if they are, our approach is not instinctively to pray judgement upon them (because judgement will come, not because we prayed it, but when God deems it time), but to pray for their salvation (Romans 12:20); this is one thing we can do better than David because we have more understanding.

In verse 8, David prayed an important prayer: Show me the right thing to do. Show me clearly how you want me to live. We don’t have to be in a similar situation to ask God to show us the right thing to do. This is the prayer we should all pray daily, as every day we are faced with several ways that seem right, but they aren’t always God’s perfect will.

Just as the wicked will get their reward, so will the righteous who put their hope in God (v 11-12). God gives his children joy and wraps them with his everlasting love, forever.

Love,

Osi