I’m trying to go in sequence with the psalter; but I still feel like asking the question, ‘Did I let my guard down?’ Why? Because the last thing I wrote was about weeping flowing into tears of joy. But now I am asked again to pray
1 In you, O Lord, I seek refuge; do not let me ever be put to shame. In your righteousness deliver me…
You see, I’m just thinking that along my own journey, I have often reverted from the Path of Powerful Praise to the hikes of harassing hurry, fields of failing fury and ways of worthless worry; deviated from the safety of my Real Refuge in God and fallen into ‘ 4 the net hidden for me,’ that I have to ask again to be taken out of that net, when all would have been well had I just remained in safe keeping.
Safe keeping does not mean being locked up in a safe away from the beauty of life. Rather, it is enjoying the shalom, the wholeness, the abundance that comes with staying with God. That’s where the unbounded pleasures are. The enemy would have us believe that we are chained like prey when we choose to abide in God. That’s the big lie. I am remined by George Matheson of a bygone era, that real liberty issues from allowing oneself to be God’s captive. Try this prayer:
Make me a captive, Lord And then I shall be free. Force me to render up my sword And I shall conqueror be. I sink in life’s alarms When by myself I stand. Imprison me within thy arms And strong shall be my hand.
My power is faint and low Till I have learned to serve. It wants the needed fire to glow, It wants the breeze to nerve. It cannot drive the world, until itself be driven, Its flag can only be unfurled When Thou shalt breathe from heaven (George Matheson, 1842-1904)
When I stay with God, distress is lifted, so even this prayer is cast into the past tense before I realise it:
9 Be gracious to me, O Lord for I am in distress. My eye wastes away from grief, my soul and body also. 10 Fir my life is spent with sorrow, And my years with sighing, My strength fails because of my misery And my bones waste away. 11 For I am the scorn of all my adversaries A horror to my neighbours, etc.
You see, when we stay in God, even such deep unpleasantries shall come to pass.
And I don’t mean that they’re waiting to happen. Quite to the contrary, I anticipate them fading into history. So, stay with God, my friend.