[Thursday's Devotional] - Vindicate me, O God

Psalm 43 opens with a change of tempo.  There is a more upbeat feel now.  The Psalmist is able to imagine justice and restoration.  We’re on the way up!

Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people, from the deceitful and unjust man deliver me!  Psalm 43:1 [RSV]

Just the prayer itself is a sign of an improved spiritual and mental state.  The Psalmist clearly finds himself surrounded by people who don’t exactly have ‘Kingdom values’.  Descriptions such as ungodly and deceitful and unjust can sound like extreme descriptions to us.  We can read on thinking life must have been bad in 1000BC with all those dreadful people making life miserable for the Godly!  But I doubt that is the case though; I believe that the people living then where much like those living now.  People who would regard themselves as good and right thinking people, who would be shocked to hear themselves described as deceitful and unjust but who are, nonetheless.  I find it easy to think of people that I have known and worked with, nice people on the surface, but beneath the veneer they are deceitful and unjust.  They may not have set out to be.  They may have been duped by others into crooked thinking.  They may believe themselves to be doing right and sincerely believe that their mode of operation is good and just.  But the fact remains that they have become deceitful and unjust.  Being at the mercy of such people can lead to pain and depression of the worst sort.  Quite rightly the Psalmist does the only thing he can, he cries to God for help.

Until Christ comes again, there will be unjust and deceitful people to deal with.  They may well lead us to call out to God for deliverance from them.  Deliverance will and does come. Situations will change and the seemingly undefeatable forces arrayed against us will crumble away.  This can take time though, and old circumstances can be replaced by new, but also challenging ones.  This is all a part of being a member of God’s travelling pilgrim people who have no home in this world as we are not a part of it.

The best advice we can take when we find ourselves oppressed and depressed by people who are polluted by an ungodly zeitgeist (spirit of the age) is to cry out to God for help and deliverance.  It is a right, Godly and proactive response; as is praying for those who oppress you and longing for their freedom and salvation.  So take control of the situation today by praying for deliverance form the acts of people who treat you unjustly and by praying for your enemies too.

John Martin-Jones