This week’s Song To Live By is Psalm 14

Andy writes:

Through the many centuries that God has been working out his covenant the people of faith sometimes throw up their hands and say, “isn’t there a single faithful person we can point to?!”

Sometimes society just seems so godless. People boasting proudly of their dismissal of the divine. Atheists arrogantly assuming their intellectual superiority. This can leave the believer feeling awkward, embarrassed, or inferior. Am I the fool for believing in God?

Or maybe it’s just the seemingly unceasing cases of corruption that seems to rear its head at every level of leadership that’s getting us down. Whether it’s politics, or celebrities, or church, or even closer to home - this epidemic of unrighteousness can be so discouraging.

There’s and internal cry that the people of faith feel like shouting out, “can’t you see how good God is?! Can’t you see how much better it is for everyone when we follow his ways?! The poor don’t have to be crushed, integrity doesn’t have to be compromised, the arrogant needn’t control the narrative!”

Psalm 14 shows us that not only are these sentiments natural; but God actually wants us to express them to him. We can complain in faith. Our woes should be part of our worship. God wants us to come to him with our wrangling, our worries and our hand wringing. He is more than capable of receiving our lament.

The key is to not end at complaint, but to move onto call. To not finish with lament but to be sure to also express longing.

We can start with all the problems, but then we look to the promise.

Surely the Lord will bring salvation, so let us rejoice and be glad.

A prayer

God, why are there so many who don’t believe in you? And why do they sound so smart? Won’t you humble them? Why has corruption become so endemic? How can the poor continue to be crushed as they are? God, I don’t have the answers, but I trust that you do. You are the God who casts down the proud, and lifts up the humble. You are the refuge of the poor, and the help of the weak. Please, let your Kingdom come, let your will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven. Amen.