Psalms 6 – 8
These three Psalms work well together since they deal with one’s relationship with God. Psalm 6 focuses on asking the Lord for deliverance, while 7 asks for refuge. Psalm 8 declares the glory of God. These are some of the main components used when connecting with God via prayer. But connecting is simple when you start with the glory of God and honoring him, then focusing on the inner you, then others around you and finally the community as a whole.
Psalm 6 starts with a common request from me to God; “rebuke me not in your anger nor discipline me in your wrath.” I wish I would have followed that advice when raising my children. Often my anger would take over and consume my corrective action and I would over react. I use to believe I had this in “check” for years, but it came out a few weeks ago.
We were taking a 4 year old that spent the week with us back home to Ohio. During the trip she had a meltdown, and demon possession was bantered about. I remained calm until Katy and her mom went to the bathroom at a stop. She was running around out of control in a parking lot where I had to grab her so she would not get hit. When I sat her down I was in control, until she threw grass in my face and spit in it too boot. I went from calm to out of control in rage. You would never have noticed if you were watching me, but mentally I lost it. So when I pray this it’s from my perspective of “anger” and “wrath.”
Psalm 7 verses 4 & 5 hit me because David is asking for justice, from those HE wronged:
4 if I have repaid my friend with evil or plundered my enemy without cause, 5 let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it, and let him trample my life to the ground and lay my glory in the dust.
That is something that I find hard, it’s bad enough when you get a spanking from a loving God or even a parent. But when someone who does not have that loving bond seeks justice, all bets are off. I would have a difficult time asking this since who knows what would happen, but at the same time we need to ask forgiveness! That’s part of paying the price for doing wrongs. We cannot expect everyone that wronged us to suffer while our wrongs get forgiven by a loving God. We must ask forgiveness and forgive! “Forgive us our trespasses and we forgive others.” The Lord’s prayer says it all, we must expect forgiveness as we forgive others, yet it’s not saying hide your from your wrongs.
Finally the majesty of God is explored in Psalm 8 by immediately acknowledging “how majestic is your name in all the earth!” I wish that were the case today but unfortunately science has effectively dismissed any God. “Brilliant” minds like Stephen Hawking’s complete dismiss God because we are just random and die. So while God is accepted by most, a growing discontent has decided that there is NO God. Before people would worship attributes of God and bundle them into different gods or try to create idols to explain God’s creation. Now science attempts to debunk all that into a “logical” explanation of what happened and how things are created.
Verse 9 ends the reading with the following:
9 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You can’t make that true in the lives of others, but you can in your own. So make sure in your prayers you honor God and thank him often!