"I'm Fed Up...I Think."

It was Rudyard Kipling who penned the now famous line “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you.”  

It takes considerable effort these days to read a newspaper, surf the web or watch 24 hour streaming news coverage of events in our nation and around the world and keep your wits about you.  I suspect it has always been difficult to do, but living in a Christian perspective of things is especially challenging in today's world. 

For years, I read Psalm 139 as one of those “get close to the Lord” texts.  It’s a terrific meditation text.  It reads perfectly beside a Colorado stream or sitting on a mountain as dawn is breaking.  Works great in retreat and church camp settings, too!  The first 16 verses are spell-binding.  The writer isn’t cynical.  He’s definitely not a skeptic.  Verse after verse he says the most fantastic things about God.  His thoughts eventually crescendo into the following statement:
17How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
   How vast is the sum of them!
18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
   I awake, and I am still with you.

That’s good stuff.  But he isn’t done.  He turns on a dime and lets his heart declare its pain.  He lives between the reality of God’s power and overwhelming presence and, his own pain in particular.
19Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!

Oh men of bloodshed depart from me!

20They speak against you with malicious intent;

They take your name in vain.

21Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?

And, do I not loathe those who rise up against you?

22I hate them with complete hatred.

I count them my enemies.

“Are these verses a ‘typo’?  What happened to the guy in the first 18 verses?  Something is wrong here,” we say to ourselves.  Or is it?  Not at all!  He is a believer who lives between what he knows to be true about God and the realty of the brokenness that is the world in which he lives.  He loves the Lord.  He wants to see righteousness championed.  He wants to see evil purged from the earth.  But, he is angered by the arrogance of evil in its many forms.  He’s fed up!  Ever felt like that?  

Then he says:   
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart!

Try me and know my thoughts!

24 And see if there be any grievous way in me,

And lead me in the everlasting way.

Psalm 139 is much more than an inspiring devotional read.  It gives voice to our struggle to live as people of the gospel in a broken world.  Next to thoughts of God’s power, presence and care for us  is the call for us to bless and curse not; to turn the other cheek; to love those who despitefully use us; to love our enemies; to be ambassadors for Christ.  

Nobody lives on a mountain top or down by the river.  We live in life situations that challenge our ability to stay connected with God’s calling and to be the kind of presence God needs us to be.  The trick is not getting lost in the spirit of imprecation, drifting into cynicism, or perpetual anger, or a detached skepticism or, in the spirit of the sons of thunder - "Lord!  Send lightning on the hour every hour and, I’ll tell you where to send it!”  

We need the prayer in verses 23 and 24 to keep us engaged in a world that needs what we have to offer.  It’s why Jesus came.  And, we are his body in the earth.  

O Lord comfort our hearts.  We can get so anxious and disturbed by what goes on around us that we forget to hand things over to you.  We forget to trust you as The sovereign One.  Save us from bitterness, anger and cynicism by ministering to our hearts in ways that bring calmness and strength into our lives.  In so doing may be equipped to be in the world as people who truly speak and live the message that “greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world.”  Through Jesus who had made all things new...amen.  

Randy Daugherty

Stephenville, Texas