God, for your sake, help me! Use your influence to clear me. Listen, God - I'm desperate. Don't be too busy to hear me. Outlaws are out to get me, hit men are trying to kill me. Nothing will stop them; God means nothing to them. Oh, look! God's right here helping! God's on my side, Evil is looping back on my enemies. Don't let up! Finish them off! I'm ready now to worship, so ready. I thank you, God - you're so good. You got me out of every scrape, and I saw my enemies get it. (Psalm 54 The Message version)
Sometimes it seems our enemies are on every side. Real or imagined, we have forces at work to distract and side track us; and we need God's power at work in helping us fight those off. I can think of countless Saturday nights when I should have been happy and ready that Sunday was coming, but the phone rang or the doorbell rang, or a child hurt themselves. And I can't count the Sunday mornings when it was worse than Saturday night - trying to get to church becomes almost impossible and sometimes we easily give in and say, "I won't go today." The psalmist had real enemies, and our enemies are just as real even if they are not real persons, but distractions, temptations, verbal attacks, and the list is too long for us to continue; but, we hear what the psalmist is saying, "God, for your sake, help me!" We've said that prayer. There are those out to get us in their own way; hits come from men and women sometimes, and the wounds are necessarily those of blood, but deeper within our souls. Yet, there comes the moment when we realize, God is at work right here where I am hurting. God is destroying all that would keep us from staying faithful in our service to God.
Look at his resolve when he said, "I'm ready now to worship, so ready." Yes. We have been there too. We may have arrived to worship all beat up and feeling like warmed over burnt oatmeal, but once worship began, we said, "I thank you, God - you're so good. You got me out of every scrape, and I saw my enemies get it." Yes, thank You, God.
PRAYER: Lord, as the weekend begins, let me be strong in my resolve to attend worship. I pray the defeat of any enemy that might come against me or my family to distract us or sidetrack us from going to Your house to worship You. I claim the victory of a successful worship where You are praised, You are blessed and I can give You all honor and glory; this I pray in Christ Jesus' precious and powerful name, amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord!
Eradio Valverde
