Читать книгу Reflections on the Psalms - Steven Croft - Страница 20

I will give thanks to you, Lord, with my whole heart;I will tell of all your marvellous works.

‘… let not mortals have the upper hand’ (v.19)

All is well, it seems at first. The psalmist’s enemies have been defeated. The wicked have been destroyed. God is to be praised, his miraculous deeds recalled and recounted.

But then the tone changes. ‘Have mercy on me,’ the psalmist pleads. What we have read so far has been more a statement of faith than an account of experience. It has told us what ought to be true.

Believing in God while living in God’s world can be a frustrating experience. There is too much that is wrong with the world. It gives unbelievers a rod to beat us with. If there is a god, why does he not sort the world out? In particular, why do good people suffer and the wicked get away with it? And why does this happen on a global as well as an individual scale? There are too many dictatorships, too many places where people live in unnecessary poverty, too many of our sisters and brothers displaced from their homes and living in fear.

When we do not know how to pray for them, the psalmist’s prayer can be ours too: ‘let not mortals have the upper hand’ (v.19). Despite all evidence to the contrary, God is indeed the one who will rule the world with righteousness and govern the peoples with equity. In the final contest between God and mortals, there can be only one winner.

Reflection by Gillian Cooper

Refrain:

You, Lord, have never failed those who seek you.

Prayer:

Remember, Lord, all who cry to you

from death’s dark gates;

do not forget those whom the world forgets,

but raise your faithful ones to Zion’s gate,

with your all-conquering Son,

Jesus Christ our Lord.