Praying the Psalms~ Psalm 11

If the foundations are destroyed, what are the righteous to do?

Here is a verse from Psalm 11 that is famously quoted over and over of late. This Psalm seems to speak to a time and a people who feel like their society is falling apart. There is no apparent place to go, except, “Run for the hills!”

David’s question is, “How can you say to me, ‘Run for the hills?’ ” And his question is not based on the fact that he thinks the advice is ill-given. David seems to say, “How do you think that running for the hills will help?”

Beyond a doubt, there are moments in history and in our lives where we find ourselves in a place where there is no where to hide in the natural. People are tracking your every move “in the shadows” or “in secret” plotting. The enemy of our soul is shooting his arrows of temptation and his lies at us, as well.

We look in despair, at our nation, at the world and say, “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”

At this point, David truly says, “In the Lord I put my trust.” I grew up as a child in the 1980’s. We saw the iron curtain fall. We lived in a time of relative peace. The focus of Christian teaching became pretty commercialized. We lost the urgency of our need for God. We watched Indiana Jones and laughed at the characterized Nazi villains. All of this evil was in the past. The world had learned it’s lessons and all was well.

In fact, what could possibly happen to America? In the 80’s and 90’s people wondered about Revelation and prophecy. Why isn’t America obvious in prophecy they wondered? How could such a great nation that stands for God, good and morality around the globe not be in prophecy? How could it all happen? These types of questions led people to say things like, “Well, then the only other option would be for the rapture to happen at the height of America’s glory. With all the Christians out of the way, then it would be easy for the non-Christians to follow the Anti-christ.” This sounded good, because it meant all the Christians got out before anything bad happened. (It doesn’t matter what happens around the rest of the world…as long as America is okay.)

This kind of blindness assumed that the constitution itself and not our faith would protect us from disintegration as a society. My generation slipped into a pop-culture induced coma. Everyone looked to the future as bright and embraced every new technological advancement as good, never knowing what it would be like for the government to be able to see where you are every minute of the day.

No one assumed what the bible says to be true. “We all like sheep have gone astray, each man to his own way and the Lord has laid upon him the iniquity of us all.” We assumed that we weren’t the sheep going astray. We embraced movies and music that celebrated sin and mocked God and cried, “Grace! Grace!” Meanwhile, each decade slipped further and further into deception and the church fell asleep at the wheel.

Is this rambling? Maybe because the slow descent into the foundations of our nation being destroyed happened in such a haphazard way. Maybe we stopped paying attention and lent our hearts to the media to tell us what to believe and what to want and how to behave. Maybe we rambled down the road of destruction like children led by the pied piper?

Now, we still have a general sense of security, but those of us who have been around for several decades or more can see and hear and feel in our spirits that something is happening. Something is unraveling. The foundations are being destroyed. What are we to do?

Here is where God calls us up. He says, through David’s prayer, ” Trust.”

What does that look like?  Let’s pray like David and ask God, as our foundations are being shaken to protect us, lead us and vindicate.

Faith in the Lord’s Righteousness

To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.