“If an enemy were insulting me,
I could endure it;
If a foe were rising against me,
I could hide.
But it is you, a person like myself,
My companion, my close friend,
With whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship
At the house of God…”
Dante’s Inferno spoke of seven levels of hell, assigning increasingly awful levels of hell for increasingly awful sins. (There’s no Biblical support for this; he was just processing life.) The worst sin? Betrayal.
Betrayal doesn’t just ruin the moment: it ruins the past (what was real?) and even threatens to ruin the future (who can I trust?).
David experienced betrayal, and maybe you have too. I know that when I bubble up into resentment and imagine revenge scenarios that I’m reliving some experience of being betrayed.
David didn’t lash out at innocent bystanders and often didn’t have the opportunity to confront his betrayer, but he did lay it all out before God. He didn’t pretty up his emotions. (Check out Ps 55:15!) He prayed it out and left it with the One who, if need be, will bring about justice.
Do you need to pray something like this today?
“Cast your cares on the LORD
And he will sustain you;
He will never let
The righteous be shaken.”
(Ps. 55:22)
Praying with you today!
Andrew
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