Prayer in the presence of our enemies requires brutal honesty with God about the circumstance we face, including within ourselves. As the Psalms teach us, often to our discomfort, we are free to tell God how we are feeling and what we think we need him to do on our behalf.
He may or may not respond in the way that we ask.
But theologically editing our prayers for what we think is acceptable to God, which I suspect I do more often than I realize, is not what the psalms teach us.
A genuine relationship with God requires that we be transparent about what we think and feel about our enemies. Simultaneously, this psalm teaches us to trust in the God who “secures justice for the poor and upholds the cause of the needy” (Psalm 140:12).
As we read later in the Scriptures, Jesus teaches us to love our enemies. But such love requires transformation. And the change begins with truth in our innermost being.
As the Apostle John writes, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:7 NRSV).
Truth is at work in us when we acknowledge what we really think and feel about our enemies, even when that’s not what we should think or feel about them.
Rescue me, LORD, from evildoers; protect me from the violent, who devise evil plans in their hearts and stir up war daily. Psalm 140:1-2
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