Today’s reading is Psalm 13.
“Consider and answer me, O Lord my God…lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.” David’s third fear in the interim between God giving His promises and God fulfilling His promises is the fear of ridicule. The enemies may rejoice, belittle, mock. Knowing David’s history with the taunts of Goliath and David’s ensuing victory, it is a little surprising David has this fear. And yet, as we’ve really recognized this week, even a valiant warrior like David has times of struggle and weakness. This should give us a great deal of comfort. However, the reality is the taunts, rejoicing, and ridicule of the enemy shouldn’t bother us all that much. After all, whether we are winning or losing, that is how they are going to behave. In fact, Jesus said we should rejoice when our enemies are ridiculing us. That is actually when we are most blessed. Jesus said, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:11-12). And in Psalm 13, we are seeing one of those prophets. We are seeing one who was ridiculed. We are seeing one whose enemies were rejoicing over him, belittling him, mocking him, threatening him. He may have been early enough in the history to be justified in this fear. We, however, having read our Bibles, have seen it happen again and again and again, and then seen God accomplish the victory. We have no need to fear ridicule, it’s just part of the discipleship experience. In fact, if we aren’t experiencing it, that is when we need to be concerned.
Tomorrow’s reading is Psalm 13.
A Word for Our Kids
Hey kids, when I was young, we used to say, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” When I got older, people started appreciating that the emotional hurt of words can be pretty painful on the inside. So, someone, somewhere, at sometime rewrote the saying, and it has become pretty popular: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can really hurt me.” When I first heard it, having experienced the emotional pain of striking words, I was impressed. However, now that I’m even older, I think I want us to go back to that original statement. Don’t misunderstand me. If you are talking about how you are going to speak about and to others, then live by the modified statement. You and I must not harm others either physically with our actions or emotionally with our words. But, you will go a long, long way in your life if you learn not to let words hurt you. If you remember that words are just that. They are words. They do not break bones. They do not break the skin. They do not shed blood. In fact, they hurt only when you give them permission to. They do not hurt because the person saying them is powerful or because the words are powerful; they hurt when you give the words power over you. When you come to grips with the fact that what others think and say about you doesn’t matter, but only what God thinks and says about you, then the words of others can be kept in their proper place. Sometimes we need to learn from the words of others. A lot of the time, we just need to ignore them. Most of all, we just need to realize that sinners are going to sin with their mouths, but we don’t have to let those verbal sins damage us. We can remember that our God wins, and in the end, we will overcome all the lies, slanders, gossips, betrayals, backstabs, jabs, put downs, and ridicules. In fact, their hurtful speech is hurting them way more than it is hurting us. Their hurtful speech is costing them their souls. Let’s not let their hurtful speech cost us our souls by pushing us to give up on God. God always wins!
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