The Depths of David’s Emotion

June 15, 2026June 13, 2026Todd R Leave a comment

One of my favorite things about the Psalms is the honesty and outpouring of emotions from the authors. Even King David is very transparent in the many Psalms he wrote as prayers to God, making him more relatable to us. We can see he’s not perfect, we can empathize with his pain, and we can often see ourselves mirrored in David’s experiences.

Since David is known as a man after God’s own heart, we often see the depth of his concern for others. One such passage is Psalm 35:13-14, where David cries out:

“But I, when they were sick—
            I wore sackcloth;
            I afflicted myself with fasting;
I prayed with head bowed on my chest.
I went about as though I grieved for my friend or my brother;
            as one who laments his mother,
            I bowed down in mourning.”

How often do any of us put this much effort into crying out to God for someone else’s well-being? But who are the “they” at the beginning of the verses? Who is David so concerned about? We can see that it is someone who was sick, but it wasn’t a brother or his mother, so probably not a family member.

^{David. Photo by Jack Hunter on Unsplash}

The depth of David’s pleading to God for the “they” in Psalm 35 is even more striking because the “they”…are his enemies! The Psalm begins with:

“Contend, O LORD, with those who contend with me;
fight against those who fight against me!”

The rest of the Psalm suggests there are many people making false accusations about David, “malicious witnesses” out to destroy him. David cries out to God in verse 8:

“Let destruction come upon him when he does not know it!
And let the net that he hid ensnare him;
let him fall into it—to his destruction!”

David vents a lot of negative emotions before getting to verses 13 and 14, but he does get to the point of concern for these enemies. He lets off a lot of steam begging God for justice, but never writes about taking justice into his own hands. This is the honesty I love about the Psalms – if you’re angry, it’s ok to vent to God! But it’s not ok to pray to God so you can take vengeance on your enemies yourself.

It’s only natural to be angry at our enemies, but in Christ we are more than natural, so we don’t have to do what comes naturally. Here is what Christ expects of His people, as written in Matthew 5:43-46:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?”

David’s venting in Psalm 35 is the part that anyone can do, but what really stands out is the depth of David’s love for his enemies! As I wrote earlier, how often do we put this much effort into crying out to God for someone else’s well-being? Even if they are our friends?

Jesus enables us to be supernatural, which is sometimes what we need to love unconditionally and pray as David did.

Faithful Affliction

June 10, 2026June 9, 2026Todd R 2 Comments

Sometimes the Bible surprises us by explaining things differently than how our natural instincts would like. In the case of Psalm 119:75, there are two words that we might not think of together:

“I know, O LORD, that your rules are righteous,
and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.”

How often do we associate God’s faithfulness with affliction? Don’t we usually associate it with our blessings? Yet there it is: “in faithfulness you have afflicted me.”

Earlier, in verse 71, David wrote:

“It is good for me that I was afflicted,
that I might learn your statutes.”

Then he says the benefit he gets from learning this is more than “thousands of gold and silver pieces”. Since we benefit from discipline, would God be unfaithful if He did not discipline us? Or do we only consider Him faithful when things seem to go well?

“My son, do not despise the LORD’S discipline
or be weary of his reproof,
for the LORD reproves him whom he loves,
as a father the son in whom he delights.” – Proverbs 3:11-12

He is faithful, always. Even in affliction. Perhaps especially.

Faith in the Face of Objection

June 2, 2026May 31, 2026Todd R 1 Comment

Perhaps I’m odd in this way, but I find that one of the main things that bolsters my faith is the flimsiness of objections to Christian belief. Sometimes these objections catch us off guard if we haven’t thought them through, but on more investigation, we find that they just seem ignorant. I remember one of the very first Sunday school groups I was in after becoming a Christian, that a couple of the college students in the group, who had grown up in the church, said the Gospels aren’t reliable because John’s is so much different than the other 3. In their view, the 4 writers couldn’t have been writing about the same person, and perhaps as a result Jesus was not real. First, I had to deal with my shock that these people were in a Bible study even though they had serious doubts about Scripture’s reliability and authority, as well as about Jesus’ identity. Second, I realized I didn’t have a good answer to this “problem.” So, in this post I’m sharing what I discovered since this early experience.

Most Bible students and scholars agree that Jesus spent about 3 years of His life in public ministry., from His first miracle of turning water to wine in Cana, on through His resurrection and ascension to heaven. Yet, we only have 4 short books, the Gospels, telling us what He did during his entire life of about 33 years, with a focus on the last 3. To me, it’s surprising we have so little documentation of Jesus’ life especially since the Gospels make it clear that Jesus was a very busy person, often having to hide from the crowds that followed Him everywhere. Why is this? Why isn’t there more to read about Jesus’ life?

Somewhere I read that each Gospel is really a passion narrative (a story of His suffering, death and resurrection) preceded by a brief introduction. Compare this with a modern biography of an important figure that might be hundreds of pages. The 4 writers weren’t writing a biography of Jesus in the way we might expect them to but were trying to give us enough information about who He was and what He’s done for us so that we have a basis for believing in Him. Writing for different audiences and at different times, the writers selected what they knew about Jesus to fit what they wanted to communicate. They weren’t trying to answer every question we might have. That would have taken much longer, and wasn’t really necessary.

In John’s Gospel, the very last verse (21:25) says:

“Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”

As I noted, John’s gospel is sometimes criticized as inauthentic because it is so different than the other ones. But how John closes his Gospel shows that there was so much from Jesus’ ministry that he could have chosen to write, and that he didn’t include everything. John just made different choices than the others. For example, John records only 7 miracles that Jesus performed, when in reality there must have been hundreds or thousands. The Gospels say Jesus was sometimes up all night healing people.

John also wrote about 7 “I am” statements that aren’t in the other Gospels. To John, the number 7 seemed to be important and maybe useful tool for organizing his thoughts among all he had to choose from. Considering Jesus spent hundreds or thousands of hours teaching His disciples and others, it’s not naïve to think that John alone would find this group of similar statements and decide to structure His Gospel around them. They likely were spoken months and even years apart from each other, so the pattern might not have been as obvious as it is to us, who are reading a brief, curated summary.

So, sometimes when objections to our faith catch us off guard, it sometimes means that the person making the objection (and us) haven’t thought it through. We may not figure out the answers to everything, because God wants us to trust, not necessarily understand, but knowing that He is reliable doesn’t require our knowledge to be complete or perfect.

As one of my favorite Bible commentators, Warren Wiersbe, often wrote: “We do not live on explanations; we live on promises.” We can’t know everything, but we can know as Psalm 40:5 proclaims, that:

“You have multiplied, O LORD my God,
            your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us;
            none can compare with you!
I will proclaim and tell of them,
            yet they are more than can be told.”

Amen.

The Work of Our Hands

April 27, 2026April 25, 2026Todd R Leave a comment

Psalm 90 is the only one out of 150 that was written by Moses. Psalm 90 is also the first in book 4 of the Psalms, which some say carries many of the themes and ideas from the 4^th book of the Pentateuch, the book of Numbers. That book tells of the consequences of Israel’s disobedience and grumbling on their journey to the Promised Land. The nation of Israel spent 40 years wandering, seemingly aimlessly, in the wilderness and only Joshua and Caleb from the prior generation actually entered the Promised Land.

As noted in a recent post, the Psalm begins by saying we are only home when we are with God, but the Psalm ends with this petition to God for us:

“Let your work be shown to your servants,
            and your glorious power to their children.
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
            and establish the work of our hands upon us;
            yes, establish the work of our hands!”

It may seem easy, or even natural, to just go with the flow of our surrounding cultures while in this world, but that would really be like wandering in the wilderness instead of getting God’s promised blessing. Instead, do we seek that God’s “work be shown to your servants,” and that He “establish the work of our hands upon us”? Do we seek “the favor of the Lord,” and experience His “glorious power”? This is what Moses asks for in this prayer, that we find our purpose in Him by doing His work. We all have “worldly” responsibilities we need to take care of in this world, but none of them are the ultimate goal.

In other words, the best way to spend our short lives here is to do work that matters in eternity, which God has laid out for us to do:

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” – Ephesians 2:10
“So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.” – Moses, in Psalm 90:12

Driving Toward the Morning Sun

What "Not Yet" Means for "Now"

Tag Psalms

The Depths of David’s Emotion

Faithful Affliction

Faith in the Face of Objection

The Work of Our Hands