Manna for Today: Psalm 58

 

Psalm 58:1-11

Key Verse: 58:6

“Break off their fangs, O God! Smash the jaws of these lions, O Lord! May they disappear like water into thirsty ground. Make their weapons useless in their hands.” NLT

Make the world softer, less sharp. Keep the soft part of the lion but take out the pointy parts. Dull the weapons make the arrows shoot off mark. Dull the edges, over it all over in foam. Make the world safer for those of us who are working to bring out God’s justice, who seeks righteousness with our lives. Here, the psalmist does not ask for the slaughter of his enemies. He asks for them to never to have been born, for the danger they pose to be taken away. In many ways it is a charitable way to think about the failing of those who are against you. May their logic fail, may the harm they wish to do be blunted. May they forget what they were doing on their way. How often do we ask God to blunt the instruments of those who work against us? Let us not be the “righteous” version of those who seek injustice in this world by asking for the demolition of all those who seek to demolish us. Let us be charitable in our desire to flourish, in our desire for justice. Let us instead seek to have their words go unheard, their weapons broken and rendered useless and all that they fling at us become soft and dull. May their efforts to thwart what is right and good never hit their mark, fall short long before they reach their desired destination and fall harmlessly to the ground.  

 

Things to Think on

What would it look like for your “enemies” to become toothless?

What would it mean for the arrows of those who seek injustice to be dulled, miss their mark and fall short of their target?

How do we pray for a softening of those who do wrong in our world?

 

A Prayer for Today

Lord, there are so many awful people in this world. There are so many systems which oppress others. So many ingrained aspects of our society which elevate some while crushing others. Our culture lifts up the strong, and the ruthless, giving power upon power to those who misuse it and make weaker those who are already weak. It is my first inclination to smash and burn, to rip up and destroy all of it. Instead, today I will show restraint. May the sharp edges of our culture be blunted. May the systems which are rigged to crush and destroy, fall short. May they be twisted away from their intended purposes and instead be used to uplift and strengthen. Do not demolish and destroy instead make right and allow justice to be birthed from places where before only injustice was ever born. Make all the lions toothless, remove the fangs of the vipers and the stingers from the scorpions. Take what was meant for harm and destruction and let it become a salve for healing and a builder of restoration – Amen