Tag: Christianity

Guest Post: Psalm 143: Just Don’t Be Silent

~ Evan Lenow

This is a guest post from my wife, Melanie. She originally wrote this post for Biblical Woman, the blog site for the Women’s Programs at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. The post originally appeared here.

What do you do when faced with a frustrating situation? Have you ever tried to make your point and people just won’t listen? Have you ever expected something to happen, only to be disappointed once again? Been relentlessly targeted as a scapegoat or overlooked for someone else? For better or for worse, I usually go silent amidst a time of frustration. Usually this works to my benefit, stepping away from the situation, gathering my thoughts, and only responding if necessary and in an appropriate way. Honestly, I usually come up with the perfect way to respond way after the opportunity has passed.

However, there is one relationship where silence does not work to solve anything. That is in my relationship with my Lord. If the Lord convicts me of an area of sin in my life or if I am not understanding what the Lord is doing in a situation, or if I grow weary in the waiting, the emotions of anger and frustration well up within me. “Fine. I’ll just step away,” my heart says, cowering from the uncomfortable nudging of the Lord through His Holy Spirit. Away is the exact opposite direction I need to be going. When the Lord nudges me or stretches me or upsets my comfortable sin, I must realize His workings and then run fully TOWARD him. This is where we find David in Psalm 143.

This Psalm begins with three requests made by David to the Lord. The first request David makes is, “Lord, hear my prayer”.  If David teaches us anything through his life and through his writings, it is to call out to the Lord. Make your requests! No matter how big or small the topic, trivial or life changing. So very often I find myself worrying sick over something before I realize that I have not even talked to the Lord about it. Yes, He knows my heart, but how much more does He want to hear from me? There is no time day or night, mid-day or midnight that is off limits to talk with God. God promises throughout scripture that he will hear us. Take Him at His word.  Be like David and make your requests known to Him who controls and creates everything.

Secondly, David asks, “in your faithfulness, listen to my plea.” He directly relates God listening with God’s faithfulness. The Lord hears and, in turn, listens to us, not because of how great we are or how important our words are, but because of Who He is. He is faithful to His people. When we talk with the Lord, He reminds us of that faithfulness and usually that reminding encourages us to trust him more. The process goes like this…the more we stir up our own thoughts and allow our words to fester in our mind, the more we rely on our own understanding of the situations around us. However, when we make our prayers known to the Lord and seek His face, we acknowledge our need for Him. And when we call to Him, we experience his faithfulness in listening to us. When we understand that faithfulness, it spurs us on to trust him more.

Lastly, David says, “in your righteousness, answer me.” This is the third request made by David as he begins this Psalm. When we cry out to God, we can be sure that he not only will hear and listen, but He will answer. However, sometimes the problem lies in how he answers. We want God to answer immediately or along the lines of our understanding. We cannot see in the moment how limited that expectation is. Just like God listens out of his faithfulness, he answers out of his righteousness. Deuteronomy 32:4 says, “He is the Rock, His work is perfect; For all His ways are justice, A God of truth and without injustice; Righteous and upright is He.”  As we wait for his answers, we humble ourselves, lay down our desire for control, and trust His righteousness.

David continues in the rest of the Psalm to describe his struggles and the hard situations that encompass him. He lays it all out before God. He ends the Psalm with the declaration of “I am your servant”.

At the end of the day, every believer lands at that same admission. We are His servant. He listens, loves, and cares for us in His gracious mercy because of who He is, and we should trust and rely on Him because of who we are.

Good Reading: Is Anything Lewd (for Christians) Anymore?

~ Evan Lenow

Waylan Owens, dean of the Terry School for Church and Family Ministries at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, has written an intriguing post about the use of the term “lewd.” His post asks why this word is not used and whether it should return to our vocabulary in light of some recent events in pop culture.

Here is an excerpt:

In all the hubbub over Katy Perry’s ritual dance and Jay-Z’s and Beyonce’s sex show, and in all of the Christian commentary, I noticed a word was missing.  In fact, I have noticed that this word is seldom used at all in such cases, like Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl wickedness with Justin Timberlake, even though it seems to be the most appropriate word for it all.  In fact, I do not hear the word used even by Christian pastors to describe anything that goes on in American culture.

The word, of course, is “lewd.”  According to the online Merriam-Webster, the first definition for the word is “evil, wicked,” but that definition is now obsolete.  In fact, that definition has been obsolete at least since 1975, according to my “old” Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary.  That is a shame because a strong case can be made that anything we would call “lewd” would be called evil and wicked in the Bible.

The second definition is “sexually unchaste or licentious.”  Licentious means “lacking legal or moral restraints; especially: disregarding sexual restraints.”  That would fit the Grammys, and it would fit much of what is on television and in the movies these days.  I doubt that even the actors on-stage, doing the lewd things, would disagree that what they were doing was “sexually unchaste and licentious.”  The point of their music is and the point of the show was to disregard sexual restraints.

So, if we, Christians, do not use the word “lewd” to describe aspects of our culture, is that because we do not think these aspects are lewd?  Have we adopted a better word?  I am not sure just what that word would be.  Concupiscent?  Lascivious?  Lecherous?  Wanton?  Obscene?

The entire post is worth your time, and I encourage you to read it. In fact, you should probably bookmark Waylan’s blog at http://waylanandbetsyowens.com/.