Psalm 14

For the leader. Of David.

I

The fool says in his heart,

“There is no God.”

Their deeds are loathsome and corrupt;

not one does what is good.

The Lord looks down from heaven

upon the children of men,

To see if even one is wise,

if even one seeks God.

All have gone astray;

all alike are perverse.

Not one does what is good,

not even one.

II

Will these evildoers never learn?

They devour my people as they devour bread;

they do not call upon the Lord.

They have good reason, then, to fear;

God is with the company of the just.

They would crush the hopes of the poor,

but the poor have the Lord as their refuge.

III

Oh, that from Zion might come

the salvation of Israel!

Jacob would rejoice, and Israel be glad

when the Lord restores his people!

Psalms 14:1-7

This psalm again highlights that struggle for a believer who is trying to have faith in God’s protection but still suffers through the evil actions perpetrated by other people in the world. As we have seen in other psalms, there is a pervasive theme of a psalmist who wants to see God deliver justice to the evil ones around him. Section III portrays that desire for the time “when the Lord restores his people.”

It is easy to get fixated on that need to see justice come to our enemies, or even just to those mean people who we don’t really like very much. The media has picked up on this unfortunate primal desire and exploits it whenever possible.

Beyond the formal media establishment, in this day of viral videos, people have gotten very good at capturing just the right message to create a villain that the rest of us can enjoy hating. Then maybe we can get a campaign going to punish this newly created villain.

Sometimes, I’ll bet the process actually causes a person to get a deserved punishment. Other times, I’m afraid we are all jumping to conclusions based on a creative bit of editing or a masterful presentation of misinformation. So maybe the knee-jerk reactions to these videos, that even include people being fired from their jobs, ought to be slowed down a bit.

Maybe we don’t have the perspective and omniscience to make such decisions. Is it possible that it’s not my place to judge other people, especially people that I don’t know? Maybe a snippet of video doesn’t tell me the whole story.

But what about those people who actually treat me badly? What should be my prayer in those situations? I don’t want to fall into the trap of the ancient people who were so intent upon seeing God punish their enemies that they were unable to recognize Christ in their midst. Is it possible to focus my prayer on my reaction to being wronged instead of asking for punishment?

This brings the Serenity Prayer to my mind, but also an alternate version that I saw and loved. First the original (although this source has an additional stanza, which, while it is very good, I won’t include here):

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;

Courage to change the things I can;

And wisdom to know the difference.

found here

Now here is my best recollection of the alternate version:

God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change;

Courage to change the one I can;

And wisdom to know it is me.

paraphrased from here

Let’s take this message into our days. It is a normal human emotion to want justice when someone harms us, but let’s try to focus our prayer on ourselves. We need to remember that “God is with the company of the just.”