Great Plains Daily Devotional for 10/2/2018

Psalm 140: 1-8

Deliver me, O Lord, from evildoers; protect me from those who are violent, who plan evil things in their minds and stir up wars continually. They make their tongue sharp as a snake’s, and under their lips is the venom of vipers. Guard me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked; protect me from the violent who have planned my downfall. The arrogant have hidden a trap for me, and with cords they have spread a net, along the road they have set snares for me. I say to the Lord, “You are my God; give ear, O Lord, to the voice of my supplications.”  O Lord, my Lord, my strong deliverer, you have covered my head in the day of battle. Do not grant, O Lord, the desires of the wicked; do not further their evil plot.

Ever feel like you’re under attack? I know I had brief moments like that serving as a community newspaper editor and columnist. In that role, you know you’ll cross people at times who will disagree with you – some more reasonably than others.
Add into the mix that I was a United Methodist journalist serving in a community comprised largely of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and there definitely were days that I felt the weight of others’ anger resting on my shoulders.
Several times in my 14-plus years there, I wrote columns that questioned long-held government practices in that community. While I received what was probably an undeserved amount of praise for voicing those ideas, those columns also caused others to send angry emails or to call and literally yell at me over the phone. The ones I remember most are the people who chose to make it personal by pointing out that I wasn’t “one of them,” meaning I wasn’t a Mormon. Those incidents were relatively few, but they still sting.
I’m not a poetry person, so I rarely latch on to the Psalms, but Psalm 140 from today’s lectionary strikes a chord with me. At times we feel like people are out to get us or use their sharp tongues to criticize us. It can feel like people against us.
It is in those times that we can turn to scripture for peace and healing. As the writer says in Psalm 140, we should remember the Lord is our shield. God has provided the ultimate deliverer for us in Jesus Christ, who died for you and me so that we can spend eternity free from, using the words of the Common English Bible, any plots, slander or calamity.
                                                                                                                                                                                                               – Todd Seifert