Of David.
I
To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul,
my God, in you I trust;
do not let me be disgraced;
do not let my enemies gloat over me.
No one is disgraced who waits for you,
but only those who are treacherous without cause.
Make known to me your ways, Lord;
teach me your paths.
Guide me by your fidelity and teach me,
for you are God my savior,
for you I wait all the day long.
Remember your compassion and your mercy, O Lord,
for they are ages old.
Remember no more the sins of my youth;
remember me according to your mercy,
because of your goodness, Lord.
II
Good and upright is the Lord,
therefore he shows sinners the way,
He guides the humble in righteousness,
and teaches the humble his way.
All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth
toward those who honor his covenant and decrees.
For the sake of your name, Lord,
pardon my guilt, though it is great.
Who is the one who fears the Lord?
God shows him the way he should choose.
He will abide in prosperity,
and his descendants will inherit the land.
The counsel of the Lord belongs to those who fear him’
and his covenant instructs them.
My eyes are ever upon the Lord,
who frees my feet from the snare.
III
Look upon me, have pity on me,
for I am alone and afflicted.
Relieve the troubles of my heart;
bring me out of my distress.
Look upon my affliction and suffering;
take away all my sins.
See how many are my enemies,
see how fiercely they hate me.
Preserve my soul and rescue me;
do not let me be disgraced, for in you I seek refuge.
Let integrity and uprightness preserve me;
I wait for you, O Lord.
Redeem Israel, O God,
from all its distress!
Psalms 25:1-22
I love this prayer. Right away, it gets to the prayer that I find most important. “Make known to me your ways, Lord; teach me your paths.” It seems to me that an answer to this prayer would just automatically take care of anything else that could come up in my life.
A few lines later the psalmist asks, “Remember your compassion and your mercy, O Lord.” Of course, we know that God doesn’t forget, and we are so lucky to receive God’s grace in every moment of our lives. But it’s nice to have a psalm like this to remind us.
Throughout the psalm, we are reminded of the many gifts God gives us, and that’s a blessing. But the psalmist does lament our troubles, too. For example, he mentions the fear of enemies, which is certainly a concern, even pointing out, “see how fiercely they hate me.”
Okay, I’m going to be completely honest with you. After reading the whole psalm and feeling pretty uplifted, that one line in verse 19 got stuck in my head: “see how fiercely they hate me.”
Do any of you struggle with that as much as I do? I can completely lose the ability to focus on anything else worrying about one person who doesn’t seem to like me. The psalm seems to ask God to change the hatred in other people’s hearts, but I think I really just need to ask God to let me stop obsessing about it!
I’m chuckling a little bit right now because this reminded me of an old Irish “blessing” that I found recently. I just have to share it with you:
found here
May those who love you love you; and those who don’t love you, may God turn their hearts.
And if He doesn’t turn their hearts, may he turn their ankles so you’ll know them by their limping.
That said, let’s really just focus our prayer today on all the positive aspects of this psalm. Please, Lord, “Relieve the troubles of my heart;” “Preserve my soul and rescue me.”