Our assignment for this week is to find an imprecatory Psalm, read it three times per day and report back our experiences from doing this exercise. I am not sure about this exercise. Not because I am uncomfortable with using such language with God, but because I am uncomfortable with using such language with God when that is not the way I feel. However, I decided that I would focus on this exercise and try to write about it through out the week. I don’t know if each day I will be able to find something to share about the same Psalm, but I will give it my best shot. I will just try to keep my mind, heart and ears open and receptive – perhaps The Spirit will have a lesson to teach me from this exercise.
I will also attempt to resume the previous assignments – pray a Psalm and memorize a Psalm. I didn’t attempt to memorize a Psalm last week. I only prayed Psalm 67 that one day. So I need to apply a little more effort to remember to do these exercises and then to carry them out.
Now, as for my imprecatory Psalm – I have selected Psalm 13 which states:
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? Look on me and answer, O Lord my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death; my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,” and my foes will rejoice when I fall.
But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, for he has been good to me.
Okay, never mind… I can’t use Psalm 13. It is not an imprecatory Psalm. I looked up imprecatory Psalms on the internet just now and it states that Psalms 7, 35, 55, 58, 59, 69, 79, 109, 137 and 139 either are or contain imprecatory prayers… which is to invoke evil or curses upon one’s enemies – to call upon God to judge one’s enemies.
Oh. In that case, I have not ever prayed an imprecatory prayer! I have prayed prayers in which I complained to God about someone or something that someone did. I have prayed prayers in which I have bemoaned my plight in a specific situation. But I have tried to follow the words in the New Testament, to pray for those who abuse you and persecute you. I suppose I would feel as though I were sinning to pray that God judge someone who had wronged me. Who am I to ask God to judge that person when He so graciously withheld His judgement from me for the wrongs I have done?! This is indeed going to be a difficult assignment! Apparently, when the imprecatory Psalm was defined and discussed in class, I redefined it and took it to mean using strong language to God about one’s situation or circumstances. And by strong language, I considered Psalm 13 to be an imprecatory Psalm… but, it’s not.
Since I have to select a different Psalm, I’ll go with Psalm 139.
O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me; your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.
If only you would slay the wicked, O God! Away from me, you bloodthirsty men! They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD, and abhor those who rise up against you? I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Okay, I can handle this one – for the most part. Well, technically, only a few verses are imprecatory. That’s the best I can do. Because the few verses that are imprecatory are actually being so towards God’s enemies. It sets better with me to make an imprecatory statement about one of God’s enemies as opposed to asking God to bring judgment on someone who has wronged me or abused me.
My first observation about the imprecatory Psalms is this – back when these were written, the Israelites were the chosen of God. They were God’s people. Because of what Jesus accomplished through His death and resurrection, the offer for ‘sonship’ is extended to everyone now. Therefore, now, anyone and everyone is potentially your brother or your sister in Christ and even if he or she currently is not, you now have the awareness that Christ died for that person as well as for you. Therefore, how can one pray an imprecatory prayer on one’s ‘enemies’?
I can almost see doing so during wartime. Even then, however, I find it difficult. Now, don’t take that to mean that I do not support American troops! I most certainly do support American troops! That doesn’t mean that I have to like that our opponents are killed.
Wow, my thoughts are just splintering off so many directions. I’m going to have to give this more consideration! I’ll say it again; this is indeed a difficult assignment this week!
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