The world weighted down on me today. My city council doesn’t see the need for people to wear masks in crowded public places. However, they do recommend that masks should be worn and social distancing should be observed. After learning that news, I read an article published in the local paper dated June 16, 2020. Quoting statistics from the Department of Public Health, the paper reported the following.
The virus continues to disproportionately affect African-Americans in [the state.] Blacks make up about 28% of the state population but account for 41% of reported cases and almost 46% of deaths.
Then, it hit me. This isn’t about public health at all, it’s about race. For some Pollyanna reason, that realization shocked me. It shouldn’t have. Why should I expect the city’s leadership to behave any differently from the way they have behaved throughout the city’s history?
I became angry and wanted to lash out – so I did. I annihilated a Styrofoam coffee cup spilling its contents on my hand. I’m not sure who won that battle. In truth, I smashed the cup alright, but in the process, the coffee inside the cup burned my hand. The minor pain in my hand will go away, but the more significant pain in my heart will not – at least, not for the foreseeable future.
What to do, what to do, what to do? I called a friend and ventilated. His words helped a little, but they did not “cure” me. As we were hanging up, or signing off, or disconnecting, or whatever you call it when you discontinue a cellphone call, I said, “I’m going to read the Bible and pray. I’m going to tell God just how ‘teed off’ I am” – except that I didn’t say, “teed off.” He responded, “Good idea, but I think He already knows.” So, I did.
In the daily devotional, the author invited me to read Psalm 28. In reading it, I came across verse 4 in which King David prays the following prayer.
Do not drag me away with the wicked, with those who do evil,
who speak cordially with their neighbors but harbor malice in their hearts.Repay them for their deeds and for their evil work;
repay them for what their hands have done and bring back on them what they deserve.Because they have no regard for the deeds of the Lord and what his hands have done, he will tear them down and never build them up again.
As the angel, Clarence, from “It’s a Wonderful Life” says, “Wait a minute. Wait a minute.” Did King David just call down curses on his foes? Is it OK to pray that way? I didn’t know you could do that. So troubled and confused was I, that I started reading commentaries.
Matthew Henry, the great 18th Century Welsh Non-Conformist minister and Bible scholar wrote of Psalm 28:4, “This is not the language of passion or revenge. It is a prophesy that there will certainly come a day when God will punish every man who persists in his evil deed.” Henry’s writing echoed that of the Antiochian scholar and Church Father, Theodoret of Cyprus from the 5th Century. Thus, the point appears settled.
A modern commentator writes
David wants God to punish the wicked. We can learn something about how to respond to living in a nation where the sin of its citizens calls for God’s judgment. David called for the punishment of the sin of the wicked fellow-citizens. Even though we desire to see the salvation of these . . . we can still call on God to punish the unrepentant sinners of our nation. But at the same time, we also do well to beg God to not allow those [faithful ones, presumably including ourselves] to be swept away in the punishment. David achieves a balance in his prayer. . . that we can, and should, emulate.”
In “prayerfully” worrying over the Covid-19 virus itself, God led me to a Psalm to which I clung when facing surgery some years ago, Psalm 91:3-6.
Surely, he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence.
He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday.
In his Treasury of David, the “Prince of Preachers,” Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) writes these calming and reassuring words concerning Psalm 91. He writes the evil (one)
shall be foiled in the case of the man whose high and honourable condition consists in residence within the holy place of the Most High.
And from the noisome pestilence. He who is a Spirit can protect us from evil spirits, he who is mysterious can rescue us from mysterious dangers, he who is immortal can redeem [us] from mortal sickness. . .
[T]here is . . . a pestilence of disease, and even from that calamity our faith shall win immunity if it be of that high order which abides in God, walks on in calm serenity, and ventures all things for duty’s sake. Faith by cheering the heart keeps it free from the fear which, in times of pestilence, kills more than the plague itself.
It will not in all cases ward off disease and death, but where the man is such . . ., it will assuredly render him immortal where others die . . .
Such special faith is not given to all, for there are diversities in the measure of faith. It is not of all believers that the psalmist sings, but only of those who dwell in the secret place of the Most High.
As I was praying on these Psalms and on what Godly men had written, God whispered to me,
Don’t worry so much about those in your city and nation whom you brand as ‘sinners,’ you can’t change them. Neither should you worry about yourself in these times, bad times will change to good times in My time. Rather, you concern yourself with changing your spiritual city and nation. Seek not to dwell your spirit in the world according to its system, seek instead to dwell in the secret place of the Most High.
So let it be written, so let it be done.
johnthebaptist15 