Читать книгу Reflections on the Psalms - Steven Croft - Страница 15

Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness;you set me at liberty when I was in trouble…

‘… it is you Lord, only’ (v.8)

This evening psalm, often used in Night Prayer, gives us reassuring words to say as we entrust ourselves to sleep. It forms a pair with Psalm 3 and speaks of the betrayal and insult experienced by the psalmist and the foolishness of those who ‘seek after falsehood’ (v.2).

It fits David’s time as a fugitive hounded by the ‘nobles’ who turned from him in favour of Saul. It chimes with the life of believers today as we see so much love of ‘vain things’ – an obsession with that which is empty – in our world. We are surrounded by false promises of satisfaction from sources that cannot deliver.

The test of faith comes when Saul seems to be winning, when sin seems to be paying, when emptiness seems to fill its supplicants with what they need – ‘when their corn and wine and oil increase’ (v.7). It is in those moments that we are called upon to exercise the strength of faith, believing that God can be trusted to ‘lift up the light of [his] countenance upon us’ (v.6).

The first dawn of God’s light is gladness of heart (v.7), a deep inner joy that overrides outward difficulties. The fullness of God’s light upon us and our world, though, is the promised shalom, the peace of God that penetrates every dimension of human life, putting right that which is wrong and proving that it is the Lord, only, who secures life for humanity.

Reflection by Christopher Cocksworth

Refrain:

In peace I will lie down and sleep.

Prayer:

Give us today, O God,

a glad heart and a clear conscience,

that when we come to this day’s end

we may rest in peace with Christ our Lord.