The pastor of a small church in southern Indiana was telling me about his year-old ministry. Amid his upbeat comments about his church’s building program and the growth of the congregation, he spoke about his burr in the saddle. Let’s call him Bill.
“Bill doesn’t like me. As far as I can tell, there’s no reason. We just don’t hit it off. So he often manufactures situations to make me look bad. At our last board meeting, for example, he asked the board to discipline me because I hadn’t been turning in written monthly reports. It caught me cold.
“Fortunately, one of the elders spoke up: ‘Bill, how can we discipline Pastor for that, when we’ve never asked him to turn in written monthly reports?’ “
Unfortunately, not all attacks are so easily blunted. Some persecutors want our jobs, threaten our reputations with slander, or torpedo the neighborhood outreach program we’ve spent six months setting up.
How do we handle the feelings unfair persecution creates? Self-righteousness and revenge raise their sinful heads whenever we’re attacked without provocation.
Psalm 69 is usually read as a messianic psalm. Rightly so. In describing a difficult personal struggle, David suggests many images that aptly apply to the sufferings our Lord was to face. Yet Psalm 69 also tells the story of David’s reaction to unfair persecution.
He finds himself sunk in the mire with no foothold, worn out calling for help. His enemies hate him without cause. The only reason he can cite is his zeal for the Lord’s house.
Yet despite being unfairly accused, by the end of the psalm, David, his troubles notwithstanding, is asking all heaven and earth to praise God.
By observing what he does, we can gain some insights into our own situations. To be sure, we don’t face the same physical dangers David faced. Our abuse is more psychological. But that doesn’t mean it is less dangerous. It’s like the difference between being drawn and quartered and being subjected to the Chinese water torture. Both cause us to cry out like David.
“Save me, O God.” The first thing David does in the face of persecution is recognize his helplessness and cry out to God for help. Verses 1-4 are David’s version of the first three Beatitudes. Only those who are humble in spirit and mourn their weakness in the face of sin can become the merciful, righteous peacemakers the world requires.
David cries to God with the pathos of his own weakness, but also the assurance that there is someone who can redress the questions of injustice.
“You know my folly.” David prays that his own reactions to suffering won’t adversely affect the work of the kingdom. Verses 5-12 demonstrate the selfless concern that only a Christian committed to the gospel could display. After all, I’m the one who has been wronged. I’m the one who deserves better. Yet David pleads with God not to let his possible overreactions to his situation harm the very people he serves, the people of God.
It goes against our sense of fairness to place the work of the kingdom ahead of our own agony. That outward focus, though, is exactly what we need to endure internal pain.
“I pray to you, O Lord.” David never quit praying despite his persecution’s long history. David prays specifically and confidently for God’s immediate intervention.
It’s difficult to pray in the face of long, drawn-out persecution. That’s why we develop the prayer habit when things are going well. We charge our solar prayer batteries while the sun shines, so that in the dark nights of the soul, we can call on reserve power.
“Pour out your wrath.” David’s fourth step is problematic for some. He calls for God to let his “fierce anger overtake his enemies,” and asks that they be “blotted out of the book of life and not be listed with the righteous.” Is this an attitude we can square with the New Testament concept of grace?
A closer inspection reveals two factors we shouldn’t overlook:
First, we notice David is doing exactly what the Lord teaches in Deuteronomy 32:35-“It is mine to avenge; I will repay.” David is indeed turning vengeance over to God.
Second, he seems to realize that he can’t handle revenge himself. After the strong imprecations in verses 19-28, he suddenly catches himself and in verse 29 says, “I am in pain and distress; may your salvation, O God, protect me.” Protection, in this case, from his own anger? I think so.
I know my own weakness here. I can get angry at someone one day and write him off for good. I go home mumbling about the complete lack of redeeming qualities in someone I feel has wronged me. Yet the next morning if that same person walks by my office and says, “I liked the last issue of LEADERSHIP, Terry,” I suddenly see this person in a whole new light: insightful, discerning, and kind.
It frightens me to think I am so susceptible to my own emotion. Perhaps that’s why God reserves vengeance for himself: we’re incapable of handling it.
“I will praise God’s name.” Unbelievably, David’s final note in this psalm is a resounding call to praise God. Praise God when we are being persecuted? Sounds difficult. Actually, it sounds impossible. Yet David does it.
Psychologists James and Lange postulated a theory of emotion: The feeling of an emotion follows an act that typifies it. For example, when you don’t feel loving, if you perform a loving act, the feeling of love will follow.
Often, our feelings for God are similar. Even when our present circumstances don’t lend themselves to praise, if we praise anyway, the feelings follow.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow-even if the blessing is only our physical capacity to raise our faint voices in words of awe and respect.
Terry C. Muck is editor of LEADERSHIP.
Copyright © 1987 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
