I sent a message to email friends recently. Then, I deleted it. I was trying to say something wise and woke about the insurrection at the Capitol Building.
My comments weren’t adding much, so I hit delete, shutting my mouth long enough to hear something far more valuable—a verse of scripture, Psalm 138:7. I’d explored it this week’s in an Our Daily Bread devotional. Writing of God, I’d cited David’s words saying:
“You stretch out your hand against the anger of my foes” (vv. 7 niv).
Reading it, I put down my microphone (or bullhorn?) to share not my “wisdom” but God’s real hope.
FRET NOT EVIL MEN
So, here’s the Lord’s calming reminder, an echo of David’s thoughts in another of his songs, the empowering Psalm 37:
“Fret not yourself because of evildoers;
be not envious of wrongdoers!
For they will soon fade like the grass
and wither like the green herb.” (vv. 1-2 esv)
Instead:
“Trust in the Lord, and do good;
dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness” (vv. 3).
This “soft” response may feel insufficient in the face of enraged mobs committed to domestic terrorism. But as psalmist David declares: Trust God. Do good, too.
Then our more perfect union, which never has been perfect, might arise?
THE MADDING CROWD
But what if the madding crowd, to use British novelist Thomas Hardy’s phrase (taken from a Thomas Gray poem), are your own relatives? The duped folks following QAnon and other off-the-wall conspiracy theories? The enraged people engulfed by disinformation campaigns which, as some say, may be the work of Putin and his henchmen eager to see America devolve further into chaos?
A scary thought. Your own relatives? Good gracious. Storming the Capitol, wrongly equating Jan. 6th with the revolution of 1776?
Or, if they didn’t travel to Washington, did they stay home to wreak havoc in their own communities, homes and families?
THEN, GIVE THEM TO GOD
David, whose relatives were as noisome and troublesome as anybody’s, knew of which he spoke. It’s instructive, indeed, that he doesn’t waste his energy on anger at the madding crowd (those famously decried by Hardy in his 19th Century novel, “Far From the Madding Crowd.”)
Instead, David’s psalms turn his focus, and his problems with people, back to God.
“Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him, and he will act.
He will bring forth your righteousness as the light,
and your justice as the noonday” (vv. 5-6).
Indeed:
“Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil…
…But the meek shall inherit the land
and delight themselves in abundant peace” (vv. 8,11).
SO, PRAY?
Indeed. It’s prayer time. Big time. If ever people needed prayer, we saw them last week on our TVs and phones—banging on Capitol Building doors, but also on willing hearts. Saying what?
Help me. I’m lost. I’m confused. I’ve been duped. Lied to. I’m confused. Not a few will end up in jail, indeed—still fuming and believing they’re the martyrs and heroes.
Thus, in the photo above, a Metropolitan Police Officer begs for his life amid insurrectionists who threatened to “kill him with his own gun.” Appealing to their humanity, he yelled, “I have kids!”–prompting a few to wake up and help him.
And who’s turning in misguided folks? Family members. Thousands of “anguished Americans,” according to the Washington Post, “are turning in friends and family for their alleged involvement in the Capitol riots, contributing to more than 100,000 tips submitted to the FBI,” most submitted through the FBI’s web form.
One young woman turned in her mother, sorrowfully realizing things were “this far gone…it felt like a death, honestly.” Reading over her mom’s Facebook page, she cried over her insurrection photos and anti-election messages.
If that’s you and your family, the FBI awaits, indeed. But what else to do?
HELP GOD HEAL
What, indeed, if God is waiting on us? His reluctant prayer team? Waiting for us to pray for the raging and angry. For folks who want to hurt and kill the rest of us.
Waiting on us to drop to our knees, praying for folks who look like enemies? But they’re family?
As Thomas Hardy showed in his novel, the quiet rural regions seemed free from strife, but they spawned folks just as dangerous and misguided as any in a roiling city.
That irony invites us, therefore, to take our worries about troublesome people—and everybody else, including ourselves—to God. To repeat clear-eyed David:
“Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him, and he will act.
He will bring forth your righteousness as the light,
and your justice as the noonday” (vv. 5-6).
Don’t believe it? Let’s try praying for the madding crowd, especially if they’re family members, folks drowning in rage and confusion. Put down our own wisdom and run to Him, letting him shape how we help.
Then watch God work. He’ll change more hearts than we can imagine. Starting with ours.
Patricia Raybon is an award-winning, best-selling author of books and essays on faith, race and grace — including I Told the Mountain to Move, My First White Friend, and her best-selling One Year devotional, God’s Great Blessings. She’s a regular contributor to Our Daily Bread Ministries and DaySpring’s (in)courage blog, and contributes often to Compassionate Christianity and to In Touch Ministries’ In Touch Magazine.
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Any Scriptures quoted, unless noted otherwise, are the New Living Translation of the Holy Bible.
Photo credit: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
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