Psalm 14

Psalm 14
1Fools say in their hearts, ‘There is no God.’
They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds;
there is no one who does good.

2The Lord looks down from heaven on humankind
to see if there are any who are wise,
who seek after God.
3They have all gone astray, they are all alike perverse;
there is no one who does good,
no, not one.
4Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers
who eat up my people as they eat bread,
and do not call upon the Lord?
5There they shall be in great terror,
for God is with the company of the righteous.
6You would confound the plans of the poor,
but the Lord is their refuge.
7O that deliverance for Israel would come from Zion!
When the Lord restores the fortunes of his people,
Jacob will rejoice; Israel will be glad.


It is very easy to define ourselves by talking about our enemies. My favorite example of doing this goes something like this, "I can't believe that person. At least I would never do that." Usually when we say things like this, publicly or privately, we are basing our dislike on very small things. What if we actually named, called out, the things that other people did wrong instead of hiding behind our best wishes?


This is exactly what the psalmist does in Psalm 14. On his mind, evil people do two things wrong: 1) Say there is no God and 2) do abominable deeds. It's not that they are annoying or they get on people's nerves, but they use other people. They mistreat other people. They eat up, consume, destroy God's people as they eat bread.


In a sense, when we pray the psalm, we resonate with what the psalmist is saying. On the other hand, we need to safe-guard ourselves from the behaviors and actions of those who do evil in the Lord's sight. In other words, we are praying not only to identify with the psalmist, but to make sure that our actions and behaviors reflect a God-centered life.


Pray Psalm 14.


G. Thomas Martin