Tag Archives: psalms

Praying with Scripture – Part Six – What about our enemies?

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What are we to do when people make our lives a misery? Can we ask God to “smite” them?

Christians are not immune from difficulties and we are certainly not immune from having enemies or people who take pleasure in seeing us fall. In fact, 2 Timothy 3:12 suggests that all of us who attempt to live a Christ-like life will suffer some form of persecution for our faith.

In the Old Testament, particularly in the Psalms, there are many instances of God’s people responding to being oppressed, attacked or persecuted (see also Part 3 – “Negative” Emotions). They sometimes didn’t just pray for help and rescue, but for the downfall of their enemies:

  • “Let the heads of those who surround me be covered with the trouble their lips have caused. Let burning coals fall on them; may they be thrown into the fire, into miry pits, never to rise… may disaster hunt down men of violence.” (Psalm 140:9-11, NIV)
  • “May his days be few… May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. May his children be wandering beggars… May a creditor seize all he has… May their sins always remain before the LORD, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth.” (Psalm 109:8-15, NIV)
  • “O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us! Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!” (Psalm 137:8-9, ESV)

These are strong words and rightly make us feel very uncomfortable. They are full of raw emotion and show the ugly side of our humanity; evil behaviour so often results in a spiral of evil thoughts and the desire for revenge that can then lead to other evil acts that perpetuate the cycle.

Some verses in the New Testament seem to take a different attitude:

  • “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!” (Matthew 5:44, NLT)
  • “Never take revenge, my friends, but instead let God’s anger do it. For the scripture says, I will take revenge, I will pay back, says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19, GNT)

So, can we still pray for our enemies to be punished? Jesus certainly seems to have wanted to soften the attitude of God’s people towards their enemies. Yet, Paul appears to suggest that the only thing that would be wrong would be actually carrying out revenge ourselves – praying for God to take revenge on our behalf looks (according to Romans 12:19) to be ok.

How might we reconcile these apparently divergent views? We might say that those who wrote the Old Testament were still on a learning curve – they hadn’t yet realised that God wanted them to be different to other nations by not demanding horrific revenge and reprisals. But, that doesn’t really account for Paul’s advice.

An alternative possibility might be to recognise that we do get wronged and are angered by it and the best way to deal with this is to vent before God, telling him what we would (in our anger) wish on others. This avoids taking revenge ourselves and puts the matter in God’s hands. Indeed, the New Testament still suggests that some will unfortunately be on the receiving end of some form of punishment from God – punishment for wrong is not simply an Old Testament idea.

Leaving matters with God involves us trusting him to do the right thing. It involves a long term commitment on our part to divine justice rather than a quick tit for tat. God can take our angry, twisted wishes for violence and translate them into true justice and in his timing – maybe soon, maybe a long time off, perhaps not until Christ returns.

Yet, although this “venting” may be more healthy than taking matters into our own hands, it still falls short of where we can aim to be – following the example of Jesus. Once we have dealt with our negative feelings, we can be transformed by God as we release them into his hands and allow ourselves to see our enemies in a new light.

God can transform our anger into a loving concern for those who have wronged us. Like Jesus, we can come to the point where we can pray for their forgiveness, because they do not know what they are really doing.

Our anger can serve a positive function by indicating that injustice has been done – we have indeed been wronged and God has been sinned against. Yet, it is not up to us to remedy things. We are right to notice sin and injustice and right to voice it to God. The right thing to do then is to leave it with him and pray for our enemies in love.

What do you think? Can you vent your anger before God or do you just hope it goes away? Can you find ways to pray for your enemies in love whilst also praying for justice?

© Joe Lenton, July 2012

Praying with Scripture – Part Two – Praise & Worship

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Do we instinctively know how to praise? Is the language of Christian praise and worship something that comes naturally or do we need to learn it?

Some of us, at least, find praise and worship difficult. We don’t necessarily know what to say and perhaps don’t really know what we mean when we say “praise God”. Given that praise and worship has always been part of the life of God’s people, we thankfully have many experiences and much teaching to draw on. This post explores learning the language and ideas of praise from Scripture.

In 1 Chronicles 29, David “praised God in the presence of the people” (29:10). So, what did he say? Essentially, David runs off a list of God’s attributes. He acknowledges that everything is God’s and lists qualities he associates with God such as greatness, power, glory, majesty, splendour, the source of wealth and honour, etc. (29:10-12). David’s praise was like a description of God’s character, attributes and abilities.

In Nehemiah 9, the people stand to praise God and confess their sins. Their praise, similarly to David’s, speaks about God’s character, who He is and what He does. God is acknowledged as creator (9:6-7), the one who chose Abram and made a covenant with him (9:7-8). God has kept His promises, freed His people, done miraculous things, given a covenant at Sinai – all these things form part of their praise.

“Praise His name”, or “blessed be Your name” are common themes in prayer passages, such as the Psalms. God’s name is His character, His reputation, the picture that He has built up of Himself through what He has said and done. So, it would seem that praise and worship may simply be retelling what God has done and who we know Him to be. Praise rightly describes God and reminds us who we are dealing with.

We might use different “names” to help us to describe God and offer our praise and worship. For example, Lord, creator, redeemer, saviour, father, Sovereign Lord, my shepherd, our rock – these are all “names” found in the Bible to speak of God and there are many more, too.

How might this help us to praise and worship God in prayer? Maybe we could draw directly from Scripture, using other people’s words and making them our own. Perhaps we could think of what we know God has done for us and the kind of God we know Him to be.

Are there any “names” you might consider using to praise God with? Do you have any favourites? Have you found any of your own creative ways of expressing your praise – maybe a name not found in Scripture?

Praise can also spill over beyond words. If we know God to be the creator, maybe we find ourselves drawn to attending closely to His creation. Perhaps taking careful photos to express nature’s beauty or planning how our garden might look best could also be described as acts of praise.

When we think creatively about all the attributes and acts of God, we can find many ways to connect in praise & worship. From thanking God for our food or wage packet to retelling the story of what God has done for us in Christ – our prayers of praise can be wide and varied.

How do you like to praise God? Is all praise & worship prayer of some kind?

© Joe Lenton, July 2012

Praying with Scripture – Part One – Form & Creativity

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Over the coming weeks I hope to post a few ideas about praying with the Bible. Today’s focus is on the topic of form and creativity.

Are you creative? Chances are, if you are made in the image of a creative God the answer is “yes”. Perhaps you might not think of yourself as creative because you think it means “arty”, but there are many forms of creativity. What form our creativity takes reflects who we are as individuals and our personalities. Some are better with words, others with pictures, others with music, still others with food, carpentry, flower-arranging, finding novel solutions to problems, etc. Prayer is an intrinsic part of the Christian life and it can be enriched by finding creative ways of praying.

The Psalms provide us with a wide variety of forms. They have long been recognised as prayers that may be said or sung. This suggests that we might bring music into play in our prayers – turning them into songs, perhaps, or using music as a backcloth to set a mood, for example. Even if melody or harmony is not used, we might still find rhythm helpful – whether it is a rhythm behind the words, like a poetic “meter”, or the rhythmic repetition of something akin to Psalm 136 (“…His love endures forever” at the end of each line).

The variations of poetic forms in the Psalms might provide creative inspiration for new forms of written or spoken prayers. Some use an “acrostic” pattern – starting each new line with the next letter of the alphabet. Others take us through a transformation from dark to light moods. There are no set rules about how a Psalm must always be written – the authors have exercised their creativity. By imitating them in this regard, we can find new ways of praying familiar themes. This can help relieve boredom in prayer and bring a freshness to our thinking.

It doesn’t have to be poems, though. Creative form can vary greatly. Paul’s letters often include sections that are prayers of some sort, e.g. Romans 16:25-27. We might even wonder if the stories of Jesus collected into John’s Gospel are perhaps a kind of prayer – “these things are written that you may believe (and go on believing)…” (John 20:31). Is John offering his narrative/”biography” as a “prayer”?

Sometimes we just want to speak to God quickly and naturally; we don’t always have time to try something else or aren’t always feeling in a creative mood. Yet, occasionally, it might be worth spending some time crafting our words carefully, focussing on bringing out what we really want to express. This can be a gift of worship to God – a bit like a letter or poem to a loved one. It can enable us to express emotions and ideas more deeply and personally. It might also be something that could help others with their prayers – our creativity is not just something between us and God. Others can benefit from our prayers, perhaps by being inspired to be creative themselves or by connecting with the experience and emotion of our words/pictures/music.

Have you ever tried to write a prayer down before? If not, why not have a go? Try writing it like a letter or a poem, for example. You could take a particular passage such as a Psalm and have a go at doing your own version. Especially if you are finding prayer a bit hard or dull at the moment, I would encourage you to use something of whatever creative skill God has planted in you to enable you to connect in a new way.

A few prayers based on Scripture can be found on the Going Deeper With God website. The prayer based on Psalm 145 is particularly relevant to this post. These prayers are not offered as models showing “the right way” to do things, but as examples of one person’s attempts to connect creatively in prayer. I hope they may encourage you.

http://www.goingdeeperwithgod.com/Prayers.php

© Joe Lenton, July 2012