Hey!
Hey, powerful person! Why do you brag about evil? God’s faithful love lasts all day long. Your tongue devises destruction: it’s like a sharpened razor, causing deception. – Psalm 52:1-2 (CEB)
On my shelf is a Common English Bible with teeny-tiny print and wide, lined margins; I’ve used it in different seasons for my devotional practice, reading a particular book and noting what God seems to be saying to me. In January 2018, not for the first time in my life, I undertook reading the psalms—but unlike all the other times, remembering how I had gotten to the 40s and faltered, I started at 51. Thus, on day 2 of that spiritual practice, I read the verses above.
Hey! There’s almost too much scope, too much application for these verses. We are living under the effects of the sharpened razor once again, as in the ancient days of the psalmist. Verse 5 promises that God will take the powerful person down permanently … yet here we are. Again. Verse 7 declares God will uproot people who make wealth their refuge; our reality says otherwise, at least so far.
What are we to do, those of us who care for the oppressed, the people whose existence is threatened as more are pushed to a wider and wider margin?
Psalm 52 takes a turn in the final verses (as the psalms often do). It tells us what to do. Be like a green olive tree growing in God’s house. Keep trusting in God’s faithful love. Keep hoping in God’s good name.
Make God your refuge.
On the days that feel hard, I try to pray like this:
Prayer
Hey! Powerful God, I believe you are good. Help me to trust in you. Amen.
About the AuthorMartha Spong is a UCC pastor, a clergy coach, and editor of The Words of Her Mouth: Psalms for the Struggle, from The Pilgrim Press.