For the leader. A maskil of David,I
Why do you glory in what is evil, you who are mighty by the mercy of God?
All day long
you are thinking up intrigues;
your tongue is like a sharpened razor,
you worker of deceit.You love evil more than good,
lying rather than saying what is right.You love all the words that create confusion,
you deceitful tongue.II
God too will strike you down forever,
he will lay hold of you and pluck you from your tent,
uproot you from the land of the living.The righteous will see and they will fear;
but they will laugh at him:“Behold the man! He did not take God as his refuge,
but he trusted in the abundance of his wealth,
and grew powerful through his wickedness.”III
But I, like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God,
I trust in God’s mercy forever and ever.I will thank you forever
Psalms 52:1-11
for what you have done.
I will put my hope in your name—for it is good,
—in the presence of those devoted to you.
“I trust in God’s mercy forever and ever.” How about, I want to trust in God’s mercy forever and ever? I want to find that moment of surrender. In fact, I think I get close now and then. How about you?
Sometimes we all let the worries of the world get the best of us, don’t we? I face those moments when the work is really piling up and I’m not sure how I’ll make it. Or I think about that time I did something that I shouldn’t have done, and I feel embarrassed. Sometimes I just worry about what might happen.
If I had the confidence of the psalmist today, those worries wouldn’t take so much of my time. At the same time, the psalmist seems to be with us in our distraction by things other people are doing. Wouldn’t it be great if we could all lose the obsession with the wrongs of other people?
Certainly, we all know people who “love evil more than good, lying rather than saying what is right.” But I hope we don’t call them out like the psalmist here. In fact, we might need to be careful about patting ourselves on the back for being any different. Let’s face it, we are all sinners because we are all human. Who am I to judge someone else just because she chooses to sin differently than me?
However, maybe we can read this psalm as just an outline of some of the traps of sin that we need to avoid. I can surely make an effort to be more truthful; I need to make sure I don’t get too comfortable with those moments of abundance; let’s not grow powerful through wickedness.
Instead, let’s all pray, “I will thank you forever for what you have done. I will put my hope in your name-for it is good,-in the presence of those devoted to you.”