Psalm 140:8 –
LORD, do not let evil people have their way. Do not let their evil schemes succeed, or they will become proud.
This Psalm is focused on asking God for protection from evil people. This gets very personal and focuses on the ones wanting to do harm to the person directly. I know I tend to forget about asking for safety in this country. We have relatively good law enforcement and people in general are good, so we tend to lose focus often in our prayer. But then again are we being attacked without even knowing it?
I look at my retirement accounts where most funds were put in when the Dow was around $6000. Now with it at $12,000 they all seem to have been looted by fund managers. Sadly they are not double but all seem to be less, one or two which were general stock funds are WAY less than the original principle. So maybe I have let evil take advantage of me without even knowing or caring.
A young man close to me is battling his faith as we speak. He believes (or believed at one time) but his close circle of friends are atheists so he washes back and forth. His resolve is in having fun, so he is easily influenced to ignore God. I was very similar at his age so I can relate. I only talked about God with the Born Again’s who stopped me and it was usually quick since I was “saved”. I know God is working on him as he did me and will win in the long run.
So I tie this verse into our lives not necessarily as direct threats but as indirect ones. Ask from protection from the ones trying to conn us from our hard earned money or ones who are trying to destroy our faith. Today is more difficult that most any times before, since there are so many distractions and because of that we entrust others with managing our affairs. We also need to choose our close friends wisely since many have no desire to share our faith and actually look to destroy yours. If this was not the case why do they tend to be more adamant about making fun of your faith, knowing you will not strike back?