Psalm 39: we may get just what we pray for!
The man in this psalm is stressed, and at the point of despair. He’s got desires, and he’s been praying to God about them. He’s secretly nursed anger in his heart toward the “sinners” and their “prosperity”: “my heart had been smouldering within me.” Yet, God doesn’t seem to want to help him, and the sinners are only getting more prosperous…
In his vexation, he cries out. At the prospect of a short life of continual frustration, seemingly at the hands of God, he can’t take it anymore: “Look, you have given me but a hand’s breadth or two of life… like a moth You eat away all [my] desires…” ‘Isn’t it enough that I have a short life?’, he thinks. ‘Do You have to destroy my plans as well?’ he adds. I’m paraphrasing, of course, but that’s the gist of what he’s saying.
Hasn’t he been the one who asked for it, though? God doesn’t ask us to remain “dumb, silent and speechless”, as this person did. He doesn’t ask us to pray that He show us “just how frail we are.” If we ask for punishment, we’ll get it. The author writes in verse 10: “Take your scourge away from me…” Well, he’s the one that asked for it in the first place!
I’m reminded of an old saying: “We are what we think.” This fellow’s been going around hating those more prosperous than him, calling them sinners - when we don’t know if they are or aren’t - complaining about his short life, and about how nothing he does succeeds, and when he finally realizes he’s in the situation he’s been imagining and talking about for some time, he yells to God for help.
What’s worse, he still doesn’t quite get it. He blames God for ‘eating his dreams’. Who said God did that? Perhaps God saved him from worse situations than the one he’s in. This person obviously hasn’t exercised good judgment so far, so what’s to say that what he wanted was going to be any better for him? Furthermore, he writes, “I am a stranger in your house…” That’s no way to approach God! If we want Him to respond, we need to have a daily relationship with Him. We should be friends, not strangers, with Him! To top it off, he also asks God to “turn away Your gaze that I may breathe freely before I depart and am no more!” I can’t think of a sillier request. We should be asking God to keep His eyes on us constantly and keep us on the straight and narrow path, not to turn His eyes away! We should be asking Him to never leave us, not to give us leave before we die!
All in all, this fellow is lacking in good judgment, and he’s been getting what he’s prayed for. No wonder he’s in the situation described in this psalm! Let him be a warning to us all! Let us all exercise good judgment in our prayers to God, and ask Him to be with us always. What’s more, we should ask Him to keep our wits about us at all times, so that we may not become a “butt of fools”, like this fellow.
