Psalm 17 is a prayer of David in the voice of Jesus

Hide me from the wicked who treat me violently, my deadly enemies who surround me.
-Psalm 17:9

“I pray for them. I am not praying for the world but for those you have given me, because they are yours.
-John 17:9

Psalm 17 is a prayer of David in the voice of Jesus.

John 17 is Jesus’ prayer in the voice of Christ.

In His office of intercessor, He who has brought God to us now brings us to God.

David was a man after God’s own heart and a man of prayer. You can’t be one without the other. Prayer is intimacy (in-to-me-see) with God.

Worship is our highest priority and the highest form of worship is lament.

This means open communication with God. I have no worries because I am talking to God, and am with God.

I know God knows.

I am not in denial or avoiding things, or just whistling in the dark.

And we are never fatalistic or resigned to defeat, because hopelessness is bad theology.

We are masters at the art of supplication: humbly asking. It is proud not to ask God. Asking requires humility. Both to not covet and to ask are correct theology.

Psalm 17, Spurgeon:

He flies to prayer in all times of need, as a pilot speeds to the harbor in the stress of tempest… We have in the present plaintive song, An appeal to Heaven from the persecutions of earth. A spiritual eye may see Jesus here.

An appeal to Heaven’s court.

In John 17, Jesus steps into his permanent office of intercessor. We belong to Father and Jesus is praying for us.

In Psalm 17, David sees this, with the voice of Jesus. He says the enemies have first besmirched God, then attacked and entangled him.

David asks that God be vindicated and then he be delivered.

What they have done to David, they have done to God.

It is God who is really being attacked.

This is not conflation, but intimate oneness with God: being in his grip, a disciple who is an instrument of peace or war.

God’s enemies are our enemies and our enemies are God’s enemies, if we belong to God.

And our brother is never our enemy.

There are people who are wicked.

Bob Dylan had a song called, “Man of Peace”. It says, “Sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace”. Evil wears disguises!

Spurgeon:

The foes from whom David sought to be rescued were wicked men. It is hopeful for us when our enemies are God’s enemies. They were deadly enemies, whom nothing but his death would satisfy.  The foes of a believer’s soul are mortal foes most emphatically, for they who war against our faith aim at the very life of our life. Deadly sins are deadly enemies, and what sin is there which hath not death in its bowels?  These foes oppressed David, they laid his spirit waste, as invading armies ravage a country, or as wild beasts desolate a land. He likens himself to a besieged city, and complains that his foes compass him about  It may well quicken our business upward, when all around us, every road, is blockaded by deadly foes. This is our daily position, for all around us dangers and sins are lurking. O God, do thou protect us from them all. 

Notes from Peter C. Craigie:

• Psalm 17 is an expression, a teaching or reflection on covenant.
• God is a covenant keeping God.
• His fundamental characteristic of covenant keeping is lovingkindness (faithfull love).
• And God’s first and spectacular demonstration of this was the deliverance (exodus) from Egypt
• Covenant = lovingkindness = deliverance.
• God, for David and Israel, was known above all as a God of deliverance in crisis. We, Israel, believers, are a covenant community that shares covenant memory, of existence solely on the fact that God had delivered. 

The conscious awareness God’s Lovingkindness is the focal point of Psalm 17.

It is not an unusual, dramatic testimony of one person, that was edifying to all; but rather it is the reflections of a past and present community that knew God as deliverer.

Deliverance = salvation.

Protect me as the pupil of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings. Psalm 17:8

(Under The Shadow of His Wings, Gladiola Sotomayor, 2010, link: tinyurl.com/y5a7u5l3)

Protect me as the pupil of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings.
-Psalm 17:8

The key to spiritual warfare is intimacy with God.

We must know and live in the love of God.

The title of Psalm 17

A Prayer for Protection CSB
A Cry for Justice ISV
Prayer with Confidence in Final Salvation NKJV
Prayer for Help in Time of Trouble NLV
Prayer for Protection against Oppressors AMP, ICB
In the Shadow of Your Wings ESV
The Prayer of an Innocent Person CEV

Spurgeon

Title and Subject – A Prayer of David. David would not have been a man after God’s own heart, if he had not been a man of prayer. He was a master in the sacred art of supplication.

Spurgeon

He flies to prayer in all times of need, as a pilot speeds to the harbour in the stress of tempest. So frequent were David’s prayers that they could not all be dated and entitled; and hence this simply bears the author’s name, and nothing more.

Spurgeon

The smell of the furnace is upon the present Psalm, but there is evidence in the last verse that he who wrote it came unharmed out of the flame. We have in the present plaintive song, An appeal to Heaven from the persecutions of earth. A spiritual eye may see Jesus here.

Saint Bede

“A prayer of David.” Since many of the Psalms consist of prayers, the question may be asked why such an inscription more especially belongs to this. But though the others contain divers prayers mixed with other matters, this is a supplication through its whole course.

Protect me as the pupil of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings
-Psalm 17:8

Spurgeon

Two most suggestive emblems of tenderness and care. Involving in the one case living unity, as the eye with the body, and in the other, loving relationship, as the bird and its young.

Spurgeon

“Keep me as the apple of the eye.” No part of the body more precious, more tender, & more carefully guarded than the eye; and of the eye, no portion more peculiarly to be protected than the central apple, the pupil, or, as the Hebrew calls it, “the daughter of the eye.”

Spurgeon

Lord, keep thou me, for I trust I am one with Jesus, and so a member of his mystical body. “Hide me under the shadow of thy wings.”

Spurgeon

Even as the parent bird completely shields her brood from evil, & meanwhile cherishes them with the warmth of her own heart, by covering them with her wings, so do thou with me, most condescending God, for I am thine offspring, & thou hast a parent’s love and protection.

Hide me in the shadow of your wings

Spurgeon

This last clause is in the Hebrew in the future tense, as if to show that what the writer had asked for but a moment before he was now sure would be granted to him. Confident expectation should keep pace with earnest supplication.

Nothing can separate God’s children from his love.

Everything is about our relationship with God.

God is tender and caring towards us.

God cherishes us.

We are in the center of his attention.

We are extremely important to God.

God is very fond of you.

You keep me and hide me.

Keep close watch over me as the apple of Your eye; shelter me in the shadow of Your wings.
-Psalm 17:8 (VOICE)

We are as close to God as we choose to be.

Intimacy with God is cultivated.

The key to spiritual warfare is our affectionate, personal relationship with God.

My steps are on your paths; my feet have not slipped. Psalm 17:5

My steps are on your paths; my feet have not slipped.

-Psalm 17:5

Jeremiah Burroughs wrote this about David’s backstory to these words:

Lord, whatsoever the wrath of Saul be against me, yet let neither that, nor any other thing put me out of thy way, but keep my heart close unto thee, and keep my paths in thy way; let not my footsteps so much as slide from thee, for, Lord, they watch for my halting; if they can find but the least slip from me, they take advantage of it to the utmost; and I am a poor and a weak creature, therefore Lord help me, that my footsteps may not slide.

Charles Spurgeon wrote this:

Under trial it is not easy to behave ourselves aright; a candle is not easily kept alight when many envious mouths are puffing at it. In evil times prayer is peculiarly needful, and wise men resort to it at once.

We have a precept here incorporated in an example; if we would be preserved, we must cry to the Preserver, and enlist divine support upon our side. “Hold up my goings” – as a careful driver holds up his horse when going down hill.

We have all sorts of paces, both fast and slow, and the road is never long of one sort, but with God to hold up our goings, nothing in the pace or in the road can cast down. 

Peter C. Craigie wrote:

His feet have held firmly to God’s “tracks”, which suggests a walk entirely different than that of wicked persons.

He could assume the privilege of the righteous and pray for vindication.

My steps have held closely to Your paths [to the tracks of the One Who has gone on before]; my feet have not slipped.

-Psalm 17:5 (AMPC)

Walking in The Word and Avoiding Violent Ways

Concerning what people do:
by the words from your lips
I have avoided the ways of the violent.
My steps are on your paths; my feet have not slipped.
-Psalm 17:4-5

Violence is the way of the world.

Violent words and actions.

Stealing and destroying.

Through violence, verbal or physical, we rob others.

David was a warrior.  He personally killed lots of people.

But I don’t think that is what he is talking about.

These are some questions that come to mind:

What are the paths of the violent?

What are the deeds of men that I want to avoid?

What does God and God’s word keep me from?

If I walk with God, what will I avoid?

“The paths of the violent,” or, “paths of the destroyer,” are the pathways of sin.

To avoid these paths, you have to desire to.

The desire for God is greater than the desire to sin.

To avoid the bad path, we have to make a choice to stay off it.

It doesn’t happen automatically.

How to we stay off that bad path?

“By the word of your lips”

God’s word.

The word will keep you from sin or sin will keep you from the word.

When temptations come, you have the word that helps you fight it and know what to do.

We’re always saying to temptation, “It is written.”

The life of sin is called “the violent path”, or “the way of the destroyer”.

Sin is destructive. 

It is violent in that it robs and destroys.

It is easy to see this with murder or blowing something up, but all sin is corrupting a corrosive.

Sin is when I destroy myself and others.

We are imitators, impressionable.

The most widely read devotional book, other than the Bible, is Thomas a Kempis’ Imitation of Christ (1418).

Christians are meant to be Christ’s disciples: learning to live in him and let him live through us.

Being a believer is to be in Christ with Christ living through me, taking in his word and walking it out in life. 

He is at the center of my life, in control; Lord and King. 

And Jesus is called “the Word” (John 1). 

The Word keeps us from destructive violent living. 

He’s the path:

The way, the truth, and the life.

We are to live by God’s word and not by lawlessness, destructive, ravenous, pirate-like ways.

To obey and follow what God has said is to avoid becoming a violent tyrant.

Hebrew scholar, exegete, and commentator, Peter Craigie translates Psalm 17:4 like this:

As for the deeds of mankind-
by the word of you lips,
I have kept myself
from robbers’ roads.

Peter made this comment, about this verse:

The psalmist has avoided the evil deeds typical of mankind as a whole, which are represented here by one of the most common of violent crimes- robbery.  The psalmist affirms that he has kept himself from such evil, but what made it possible was the “word of your lips,” namely the divine revelation and guidance.  In poetic language, the psalmist avoided “robbers’ roads,” and similar language continues in v 5 with a contrast: his feet have held firmly to God’s “tracks,” which suggests a walk of life entirely different from that of wicked persons.  This, the poet is utilizing with striking effect a modification of the metaphor of the two ways which was employed in Ps 1; because his feet held firmly to the tracks of God, avoiding the way of the wicked, he could assume the privilege of the righteous of the righteous and pray for vindication.

 My steps are on your paths; my feet have not slipped.

-Psalm 17:5

Jeremiah Burroughs (1599-1646) was a Puritan independent preacher, who had this written on his study door:

“Opinionum varietas et opinantium unitas non sunt ασυστατα” (“Difference of belief and unity of believers are not inconsistent”).

He wrote this prayer of David, encapsulating what David was suffering, that might have been the back-story of Psalm 17:

Lord, whatsoever the wrath of Saul be against me, yet let neither that, nor any other thing put me out of thy way, but keep my heart close unto thee, and keep my paths in thy way; let not my footsteps so much as slide from thee, for, Lord, they watch for my halting; if they can find but the least slip from me, they take advantage of it to the utmost; and I am a poor and a weak creature, therefore Lord help me, that my footsteps may not slide.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1869-85) wrote this, about Psalm 17:

Under trial it is not easy to behave ourselves aright; a candle is not easily kept alight when many envious mouths are puffing at it. In evil times prayer is peculiarly needful, and wise men resort to it at once.

We have a precept here incorporated in an example; if we would be preserved, we must cry to the Preserver, and enlist divine support upon our side. “Hold up my goings” – as a careful driver holds up his horse when going down hill. 

We have all sorts of paces, both fast and slow, and the road is never long of one sort, but with God to hold up our goings, nothing in the pace or in the road can cast down. 

Psalm 17:4-5

The Message:

I’m not trying to get my way in the world’s way. I’m trying to get your way, your Word’s way. I’m staying on your trail; I’m putting one foot In front of the other. I’m not giving up.

The Passion Translation:

Following your word has kept me from wrong.
Your ways have molded my footsteps, keeping me from going down the forbidden paths of the destroyer.
My steps follow in the tracks of your chariot wheels, always staying in their path, never straying from your way.

The Voice:

The path violent men have followed, I will not travel. 

Violence is not my way.
Your ways and Your voice now guide my journey.
I will press on—moving steadfastly forward along Your path.
I will not look back. I will not stumble.

New Living Translation:

I have followed your commands, which keep me from following cruel and evil people.

My steps have stayed on your path; I have not wavered from following you.

New International Version:

Though people tried to bribe me, I have kept myself from the ways of the violent through what your lips have commanded.

My steps have held to your paths; my feet have not stumbled.

Psalm 17:9, Hide Me From Wicked People

(Hide me, protect me) from the presence of the wicked who treat me violently (who plunder me), my deadly enemies who surround me.
-Psalm 17:9 (CSB)

We need to be aware, wake up to the fact, that we have enemies; who are breathing down our necks and want to choke us off.

Don’t let my brutal enemies attack from all sides and kill me.
-Psalm 17:9 (CEV)

We have enemies who want to surround us, rip us off, disempower us, take away any power and authority we have, and cause us to fail in our mission.

The Psalms give us prayers to pray, like Psalm 17.

Save me from the wicked people who are trying to destroy me.
Protect me from those who come to hurt me.
-Psalm 17:9 (ERV)

Yes, there are actual people out there, engaged in trying to destroy us, you and me.

They want to hurt us.

We need saving, deliverance, or vindication.

Keep me from the wicked who attack me.
Protect me from my enemies who surround me.
-Psalm 17:9 (ICB)

Intimacy with God is the antidote for the poison of attacks.

Protect me as the pupil of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings.
-Psalm 17:8 (CSB)

We are designed for warfare, with a defense, all ready for us; but we must step into it and avail ourselves to it.

The first step is awareness. Our enemies are happy if we are asleep, tranquilized, distracted, or blind and deaf to what they are doing.

Hide me from wicked people who violently attack me, from my deadly enemies who surround me.
-Psalm 17:9

This might come as a shock, but our enemies are not just the demonic; but actual people.
There are people who want us dead, silenced, or incapacitated.

My enemies encircle me with murder in their eyes.
-Psalm 17:9

How do we reconcile the Psalms, with Paul’s words in Ephesians, “We wrestle not with flesh and blood”, in regards to enemies and attacks on us?
Simply put, there are people on the Devil’s side, who hate us; murderers.

Hide me from wicked people who violently attack me,
from my deadly enemies who surround me.
-Psalm 17:9

“My enemies” are people who are rebellious: they have been well provided for, perhaps even by the providence of God, but they have forgotten God and are now attacking the Lord’s faithful servant.

Their arrogant speech shows their rebelliousness.

There are very bad people, who worship the Devil, and want to destroy all that is good from God, especially his children. They are going to be exposed, now.

Enemies like to work in darkness.
We want to see what they don’t want us to see.
They work hidden and also work to hide things.
We can ask to be hidden from them.

Ephesians 5:6-11 says this:

Let no one deceive you with empty arguments, for God’s wrath is coming on the disobedient because of these things. Therefore, do not become their partners. For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light— for the fruit of the light consists of all goodness, righteousness, and truth— testing what is pleasing to the Lord. Don’t participate in the fruitless works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what is done by them in secret. Everything exposed by the light is made visible, for what makes everything visible is light. Therefore it is said:

Get up, sleeper, and rise up from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.

Being a believer is to wake up, be awakened; and then to be the light.

Should our light be so bright that the enemies of God are exposed and blinded by the light, so that we become hidden to them?

Hide me from wicked people who violently attack me,
from my deadly enemies who surround me.
-Psalm 17:9

David’s enemies are rebellious people: they have been well provided for, by the providence of God, but they have forgotten God, and are now attacking the Lord’s faithful servant.

Under the government of God there are two kinds of people, obedient and rebellious.

Jesus message, the gospel message, which is the church’s message; is the kingdom of God, which is the government of God.

From the whole spectrum of the church, we have a variety of gospel messages that are not the gospel of the kingdom, from the health and wealth (prosperity) gospel, to the social justice gospel.  Oftentimes the gospel is either, “get saved and come to church”, or, “come to church and get saved”.  These could be called the gospel of the church.

The gospel of the kingdom says, “come under, surrender and be obedient to the government of God”.  Those who say yes, become obedient to God’s government and those who resist, become rebellious.

You can’t opt out or sideline yourself from being obedient to God.  You are either friendly with God or his enemy.  People who say “no” to obedience become rebels who end up undermining God and his obedient ones.

David’s enemies were people who were not submitting to his authority which was given to him by God.  Today, we are not living in a time where God places a king or a Moses over people; but he does promote certain people into positions of governmental authority.  Those persons and we all are under God’s governmental authority.

Everyone is under God and we are either obedient or rebellious.  David was obedient, but he was surrounded by rebels, who were not choosing obedience; so they became wicked and violent.

Today, there are people in the church, in the community of Christ, who are rebels.  Some of these are even leaders.  How can this be?  God lets us choose.

The prodigal son and Judas were both rebels.  Was the prodigal son saved, but chose foolishness and sin?  And was Judas next to Jesus, doing ministry, but never saved, or did he lose his salvation?

People in the house of God, in the camp, close associates of Jesus; choose rebellion sometimes.  Can they still be saved?  Is there mercy from God for them?

This is what and who the enemies in Psalm 17 are.

Christ is the center of God’s story and the message of Christ is the kingdom of God.  He and his message are the interpretative key to the whole Bible.  This is how we can extrapolate this message from Psalm 17: that the government of God is being expressed, made known, in the earth; and we are either obedient to it or rebel against it.  Those who rebel become enemies of God and God’s obedient ones.

As we, the obedient people of God, move in God’s government; bad people, who have become bad because they chose rebellion, become wicked, violent, and deadly towards people who are obedient to God’s government.

The obedient ones cry out to God, to hide us from these rebels, who are involved in insurrection and sedition against the government of God.

In the world today, there are two kinds of people.  One kind is obedient to God’s government and the other kind are insubordinate to God.  It’s not like one side is on the playing field and the other side is sitting on the sidelines.  The way it works and has always been, is that we are either on God’s side or against God.

Those who willfully choose not to obey God are called disobedient and rebellious.  They never just do their own thing, and just set up their own government or religion.  But they end up actively, wickedly and violently; attacking the obedient ones, who live under God’s reign.

We are born into a war and being stealth is a huge advantage that we ask God to give us.

Hide me from wicked people who violently attack me, from my deadly enemies who surround me.

-Psalm 17:9

Psalm 17:4 Living Through The Living Word

Concerning what people do: by the words from your lips I have avoided the ways of the violent.
-Psalm 17:4

The path of sinners is violent, destructive, and cruel.

It is never a good option that is fun or expressive, but is always inhumane, corrosive, hurtful, and abnormal.

Sin is full of lies and deceptions.

We think we won’t get caught.

We think we can hide.

We think it’s okay.

We go from deceived, to delusional, to deranged, and become insane.

The path of sin leads to death.

Before hearts stop, they are cold and dead.

Sinners become killers.

The way to avoid sin and avoid destruction, deception, and becoming an inhumane person is the word of God.

Jesus is the word. Knowing him and not just attributing your opinions, thoughts, and judgments to him is the key.

Christian religion and hypocrisy hear the word, but do not do the word.

Christian religion and hypocrisy teach the word as a different gospel, while not knowing, hearing, applying and doing the word themselves.

Did Judas, Saul, Absalom, or Alexander the coppersmith know the word?

How can you love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and then love your neighbor; but your tweets, your posts, and your screeds are filled with sneering hate: judgmental Un-love?

You are exactly like the religious rulers who killed Jesus on false charges.

Your whole thrust of ministry is to judge, to change God into you, and not hold sinners to account; because you were involved in or witnessed legalism earlier in life.

Repentance on your part is what is called for, not reinterpreting the whole Bible and becoming God yourself.

Out of your hurt you overreacted and became a crusader, who is destructive. 

You are like Cain, who killed his own brother. 

God has tried to stop you, but you won’t listen and have murder in your heart. 

You became deceived, deluded, deranged, and now insane.

The only thing that will keep any of us from becoming an inhumane, destructive, cruel, and destroying person; is the word of God.

If you do not know the word and let the word live in you, you simply become a false teacher. 

You will cheat, lie, and be a destroyer; but many will applaud.

The history of the people of God has always been that many of us would rebel and fashion a form of godliness without the power, a disconnected faith from the author and source. 

Israel without the living God, or Christianity without the living Christ. 

Smoke machines without fire.

Dwight L. Moody — ‘The Bible will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from the Bible.’

Knowing the word keeps us from sin, and we must do the word; live it.

Christians are people who have Christ, the Word, living in them: Christ-ians.

We are word workers, living love letters.

There are two paths, just two, in life.

The path of the word and the path of destruction.

We either love God or hate God.

We either love the word or despise it.

We are either life givers or destroyers.

If you say, “that’s harsh!”, you are already deceived and need to wake up.

It is God’s mercy, love, and grace; to say to us:

See, today I have set before you life and prosperity, death and adversity.
-Deut. 30:15

2 paths.

1 choice.

No middle path.

Truth sets you free.

Jesus loves sinners.

“I have not come to call the righteous.”

Change your mind.

Concerning what people do: by the words from your lips I have avoided the ways of the violent.
-Psalm 17:4

Psalm 17:1, When You Pray

A prayer of David. Lord, hear a just cause; pay attention to my cry; listen to my prayer— from lips free of deceit.
-Psalm 17:1

When you pray, be honest.

Don’t lie when you talk to God.

Tell the Lord the truth.

Don’t be deceptive.

Be sincere, genuine, real, and true.

Be without guile when you pray.

Present your honest story of injustice to God.

Tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth.

God is listening.

The court is open.

Ask for justice.

Be completely honest.

The judge is listening.

Get your hearing, plead your case, now.

Stop defending yourself, in your own mind.

Stop worrying that God doesn’t hear you.

You will never be turned away by the righteous judge.

Are you a believer?

You have standing in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

Your cry to God is the prayer of Christ.

God hears the voice of Jesus.

Peter Craigie’s notes on Psalm 17:

Psalm 17 is:

• A prayer
• An individual lament
• An innocent person’s prayer for protection
• A royal prayer
• Depicts an innocent person under extreme pressure
• A morning prayer (night testing, v. 3; awakening, v.15)

Charles Spurgeon wrote these notes on Psalm 17:1:

“Attend unto my cry.” This shows the vehemence and earnestness of the petitioner; he is no mere talker, he weeps and laments.

Vehemence:

Earnest:

Spurgeon continues:

Who can resist a cry? A real hearty, bitter, piteous cry, might almost melt a rock, there can be no fear of its prevalence with our heavenly Father.

A cry is our earliest utterance, and in many ways the most natural of human sounds; if our prayer should like the infant’s cry be more natural than intelligent, and more earnest than elegant, it will be none the less eloquent with God. There is a mighty power in a child’s cry to prevail with a parent’s heart.

Hear the right, O Lord, attend unto my cry, give ear unto my prayer, that goeth not out of feigned lips.
-Psalm 17:1

Spurgeon:

“Give ear unto my prayer.” Some repetitions are not vain. The reduplication here used is neither superstition nor tautology, but is like the repeated blow of a hammer hitting the same nail on the head to fix it the more effectually, or the continued knocking of a beggar at the gate who cannot be denied an alms.

“That goeth not out of feigned lips.” Sincerity is a sine qu non (essential element) in prayer. Lips of deceit are detestable to man and much more to God. In intercourse so hallowed as that of prayer, hypocrisy even in the remotest degree is as fatal as it is foolish. Hypocritical piety is double iniquity. He who would feign and flatter had better try his craft with a fool like himself, for to deceive the all-seeing One is as impossible as to take the moon in a net, or to lead the sun into a snare. He who would deceive God is himself already most grossly deceived. Our sincerity in prayer has no merit in it, any more than the earnestness of a mendicant in the street; but at the same time the Lord has regard to it, through Jesus, and will not long refuse his ear to an honest and fervent petitioner.

A prayer of David.

Lord, hear a just cause;

pay attention to my cry;

listen to my prayer—

from lips free of deceit.

-Psalm 17:1

The call to prayer is often a calling to pray for yourself.

This is not inherently selfish but relational.

We come to God, as we are, perhaps purely selfish, and God relates to us.

The sign “Start Here”, means right now, where you are.

God wants to hear from us.

Believers are God’s children and children talk to their mom’s and dad’s.

We have been adopted and are being cared for by God.

We might have been babies at first, who could only cry and sleep.

We might have been small children who were afraid.

Maybe we might feel like older children who were adopted and are learning to be loved.

Sooner for some and later for others, we start talking to God.

And it is easy, because God is the best listener and shows loving attention towards us.

There are a lot of other voices and “Sirens” in the world that want our attention.

But God is always the “true north” magnetic pull on our hearts.

No matter what your situation or no matter how long it’s been going on or how hopeless it seems; God wants to hear about it and wants us to ask for help

You might ask, why doesn’t God just fix it, without my having to go through it, suffering, waiting, and asking; maybe over and over?

I don’t know.

This thing, God allowed.

What we have to settle, in our minds, is that God is good.

But God allows suffering.

This is humbling.

Humiliating.

Saying and believing that God is bad, cursing God, is a severe error and makes things worse.

Wrestling with your circumstances, before God; is the right thing to do.

We can say, “this circumstance and your goodness do not add up, and I am confused!”

We can say, “I am hurt and angry”, or, “I am sad and losing hope”.

A prayer of David.
Lord, hear a just cause; pay attention to my cry; listen to my prayer— from lips free of deceit.
-Psalm 17:1

• When you pray
• God is listening
• Tell your story
• Be raw, unedited
• Treat God with respect, but as a real person
• Cut loose, don’t hold back
• Be unfiltered, completely honest

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Peter Craige, Psalms 1-50
Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David