Psalm 5

This week’s Song To Live By is Psalm 5

Tom writes:

Once when I was very late for a meeting, and my satnav kept redirecting me back into the traffic jam, I pulled over to the side of the road and screamed. I took it personally. I hated that stupid device. I even punched the steering wheel and jagged up and down in my chair. I knew my reputation had been damaged by its wickedness. Many people face foes far more pernicious than a satnav, with far more lasting effects than the loss of face with a stranger. And yet, most of us, when we reflect back on such angry outcries, hang our heads in shame like naughty dogs full of remorse. We prefer to pretend our “little moment” didn’t happen and we utter a thousand apologies.

Psalm 5 gives us a different response. It doesn’t let us apologise for our hatred of injustice. It owns up to the sometimes harrowing, often frustrating, occasionally life-threatening, infected by rampant wickedness, death by a thousand paper cuts, “if only it wasn’t like this”, way of life that is our reality in this Genesis 3 cursed by God age of the earth. It summons all of our being into precise and powerful petition for a return to Genesis 1, for the destruction of every evil, for the establishment of a new Eden where God’s blessing and joy and steadfast love build a house of protection that covers us with favour like a shield. It urges us not to belittle injustice, not to deny that we were indeed made for everlasting songs of joy, for walking down straight paths without having to constantly stop or duck because of our enemies.

Psalm 5 refuses to back down from the swelling, pulsating hope of the scriptures; that God sees us, that God hears our groaning; and that, in his love, he says yes to our cries of rage and somehow turns them into prayers for redemption for all who will love his name.

A prayer

O God, you have called yourself my King. And so, as my King I come to you to lay out before you the wickedness, the boastfulness, the guilt which is afflicting my life. These things hurt me. These things hurt those I love. I am not strong enough to defeat them. Please would you deliver me from them. Please would you act to destroy all that is evil. I commit my prayer to you as a deep yearning for righteousness and a return of the world to the beauty and joy of Eden.