The question isn’t if my perspective is skewed or not. The question is: How bad is it?
No two of us experience the world the same way. The uniquenesses in my eyes cause me to see the beautiful blue of Bend skies as a different blue from everyone else. The uniquenesses in my palate cause me to taste an exquisitely flavored tikka masala differently from everyone else. And the emotional makeup of the moment causes me to hear voices, see gestures, and experience relationships differently than they were intended to be heard, seen, and experienced.
Sometimes, I’m pretty close to what was intended. Sometimes, I’m on another planet.
Just because my perspective is skewed doesn’t mean I should pray from it. In fact, it makes my praying all the more important. For in my praying, I offer my perspective to God, recognizing that he alone has a true perspective.
Like Psalm 52 before it, Psalm 54 is another one of David’s skewed perspectives. This time, instead of accusing loyal Doeg of being a bad guy, David is accusing the whole region of Ziph of being arrogant foes and ruthless people. But this is the reality: These were faithful and loyal citizens who protected the young and tender Israelite monarchy from its first real threat — a rogue general with an illegal army who was running a mafia-like protection racket.
The first tip-off of the psalm’s skewed perspective is how dominated it is by “me” and “my” language — save me, vindicate me, hear me, attacking me, trying to kill me, sustains me, slander me; my mouth, my help, my troubles, my eyes, my foes.
David simply can’t get out from behind his eyes. He’s unable to step into someone else’s perspective for a moment to consider that there might be another way of seeing things.
But as he prays, he holds out his hand to God, saying in effect, “Here’s my take on things. Do your thing with it.”
Even more than that, five clarifying questions emerge from Psalm 54 based on what David writes and prays.
1. How do I feel about the people I’m dealing with? How do I characterize those who stand against me? What kind of words do I use to describe them and their behavior?
Arrogant foes are attacking me;
ruthless people are trying to kill me —
people without regard for God (Ps. 54:3).
We don’t need to be fair in our praying. God will sort things out. What we do need is to be emotionally honest in our praying. So, we don’t need to be afraid of overblown words if they honestly express our hearts to God. We ought to call people arrogant and ruthless if that’s how we’re feeling about them.
Still, we might become aware of how overblown they are as we speak them to God and that may be a part of his response to us. Actually putting into words how we feel about other people gives us the opportunity to hear ourselves and consider what we’re saying.
2. Who is God to me in this situation? What aspect of my relationship with God am I leaning on at this point in time?
Surely God is my help;
the LORD is the one who sustains me (Ps. 54:4).
When we pray, we tend to maximize some part of our relationship with God. This may or may not minimize other aspects of our relationship. But the reality is: I need God to be my help, my truth, my comfort, my friend … and I need it now!
The kind of relationship I’m seeking from God in the moment can shed light on the perspective I’m coming from.
3. What do I want to happen to that other person/those other people?
Let evil recoil on those who slander me;
in your faithfulness destroy them (Ps. 54:5).
I want something to happen. But too often I don’t articulate what I want to happen. That unwillingness to actually say what I want is dishonest.
It’s like the bad guy in the movie who tells his henchmen to “Take care of it.” We all know it means to kill the good guy, but there’s a dishonesty in the unwillingness to put the deed into words.
When our perspective is off, so too is our sense of justice. We want a big revenge to match our big hurt. But if we were to articulate what it is we want in prayer to God, we’d have to acknowledge just how excessive what we want is. Articulation forces us to deal with how skewed our sense of justice has become because of a skewed perspective.
4. What will I do for God?
I will sacrifice a freewill offering to you;
I will praise your name, LORD, for it is good (Ps. 54:6).
There’s a give-and-take here. It’s not bargaining per se. But there’s a sense of matching what God does on our behalf with a gift of acknowledgement to him.
A congruence is expected in our relationship with God. We don’t pay him off and we can’t equal him even if we tried. But there’s a sense that God has done right by me and I will do right by him as well. A one-way relationship isn’t much of a relationship. So, God leaves room for us to give back to him.
Again, this isn’t bargaining or buying anything from God. But there’s a sense of mutuality. We want something from God and he wants something from us as well. So, we move toward each other in prayer.
5. What has God done for me?
You have delivered me from all my troubles,
and my eyes have looked in triumph on my foes (Ps. 54:7).
The pendulum of our relationship with God swings back and forth between our need for him to intervene and our gratitude for his intervention. “Help!” and “Thank you” are our most basic prayers. (Yes, “I love you,” “I’m sorry,” “You’re awesome,” and “Hello” are our other basic prayers, but “Help!” and “Thank you” are our most basic ones.) We swing between them daily. At least, we should.
When we stop saying “Thank you,” we’ve stopped praying. Similarly, when we stop saying “Help,” we’ve stopped praying. Instead of feeling childish because of uttering these basic prayers, consider that they keep us childlike.
So, was David right in praying this prayer against the people of the entire region of Ziph who were trying their best to be loyal citizens to their king? Did God answer David’s request to destroy them?
Those questions really aren’t the point. The point is that David prayed and that he prayed honestly and deeply.
He didn’t avoid unpleasant feelings. He didn’t candy coat unsavory desires. He didn’t sanitize his prayer in any way. It’s all there. And it’s all David.
When we refuse to edit our prayers, we let God have the last word. David didn’t have to be right in prayers, he just had to pray. God can do all of the sorting out of things.
But once we’ve prayed, we can rethink what we’ve prayed to ask questions of ourselves as we’ve done of David to see how we feel about others, what we’d like to have God do to them, who God is to us, what he’s done for us, and what we’ll do for him.