God Persecutes Me - Job

“The fact of the matter is that God has overthrown me and caught me in his net. I scream for help and no one hears me. I shriek, but get no justice. God has blocked my path and turned my light to darkness. He has stripped me of my glory and removed the crown from my head. He has broken me down on every side, and I am done for. He has destroyed all hope. His fury burns against me; he counts me as an enemy. He sends his troops to surround my tent.

 "He has sent away my brothers and my friends. My relatives have failed me; my friends have all forsaken me. Those living in my home, even my servants, regard me as a stranger. I am like a foreigner to them. I call my servant, but he doesn’t come; I even beg him! My own wife and brothers refuse to  recognize me. Even young children despise me. When I stand to speak, they mock.

 "My best friends abhor me. Those I loved have turned against me. I am skin and bones and have escaped death by the skin of my teeth.

"Oh, my friends, pity me, for the angry hand of God has touched me.

 "Why must you persecute me as God does? Why aren’t you satisfied with my anguish?"

(From Job 19, TLB)

I'm Falling Apart - Psalm 6 - Psalms Now

O God, don't clobber me in disgust
or chastise me in anger.
But the fact is, I'm falling apart.
I am distraught and confused.
I am in deep trouble,
and I don't know how long I can take it.

I can only beg You to enter into my conflict,
to extricate me from its incessant battering,
to demonstrate Your love
in deliverance and salvation.
Otherwise I'm going down the drain;
and how, then, could I either praise or serve You?

I am fed up with this continual agony;
I can no longer endure these perpetual defeats.
I am becoming increasingly discouraged
over my human frailties and fallibilities.

If only I could be sure
that You know of my anguish,
that You discern my cries for help,
that You also feel and understand,
that You will never let me go,
then I could stand firm even in defeat
and rise victorious even over my failures
and make even my human weaknesses
serve You.

- Leslie Brandt, "Psalms Now"

From The Abyss Of Defeat - Psalm 25 - Psalms Now

I am reaching for You again, O God.
From the abyss of defeat,
the suffocating shame of failure.
I seek Your mercy and Your help.
Enable me to see something of Your will for my life.
Break through this stifling darkness
with some direction, some meaning,
some purpose for my existence.
You are my God; You have promised me salvation.
How long must I wait for Your response?

Have You given me up, O Lord?
Are You remembering the uncountable times
that I have failed You?
Then I am remembering Your steadfast love,
that Your concern is for those
who fail and humble,
that You seek to restore those
who humbly reach out for You.

I know well that those
who walk in Your course for their lives
find contentment and fulfillment.
I have tried to do so, and again I have failed.
I am aware that those who serve You
will know true security and abundance.
I have sought this only to be snared
and incapacitated by my own weaknesses.

O God, have mercy!
I know my guilt is great.
Look upon my emptiness and loneliness,
consider kindly my afflictions and despair,
remember the perpetual presence
of my human weaknesses and instincts.
Regard once more the pernicious and violent forces
that oppose Your will in my life.
Forgive me my many sins,
and restore me to Yourself.
Watch over me and hold on to me, O God,
lest I fall again.

- Leslie Brandt, "Psalms Now"

Some Friends Bring No Comfort - Psalms Now - Psalms 41 and 21

'I receive no comfort from many
who I thought were my friends.
I could drop dead; they couldn't care less.
When we meet,
their words are empty,
their thoughts pregnant with suspicion.
When we part,
they go out to spread their suspicions abroad,
imagining the worst about me
and whispering behind my back.

I can well imagine their conversation:
"One would think he'd be
beyond this sort of thing;
and here he calls himself religious.
Why, he's as bad as the worst of them,
He's had it! He won't crawl out of this!"
Even the one person I trusted the most,
in whom I confided,
with whom I lovingly related,
even he looks down his nose at me
as one he would rather step on than support.
He no longer wants anything to do with me."'

- Psalm 41 - Leslie Brant - "Psalms Now"


'But I feel as empty and insignificant
as a bag full of wind.
I don't really expect men's plaudits,
but I so sorely feel their criticism.
I risk all in following
what I feel to be Your will for me;
yet even my friends fail to support me,
and they actually turn against me.
"He thinks he's doing God's will," they say,
"But he'll be sorry he made that decision."'

- Psalm 22 - Leslie Brandt - "Psalms Now"

God Is Here - Let's Celebrate! - Psalm 145 - Psalms Now

"God is here - let's celebrate!
Let us enlist our lives in perpetual celebration
over God's goodness and greatness.
Let us announce to the world God's presence
and proclaim His loving concern for all men.

How compassionate He is over all He has created,
how tender toward His failure-fraught creatures!
He will not cop out on His promises to us.
His blessings are not reserved only for those
who fit obediently into His design for them.
He is just - and He is forgiving.
He gently picks up those who have fallen
and restores them to sonship and servanthood.
He sustains those who are wavering in weakness
and grants them His grace and strength.
He reaches into the void of empty lives
and enriches and fulfills their hungry hearts.
He is near enough to hear our every cry,
to sense our every need,
to grant us whatever is necessary
to make us happy and productive
as we seek to follow and to serve Him.
How incomparably glorious is our great God!
May our mouths articulate and our lives demonstrate
His ever-present love for all His creatures.
Let us celebrate
the eternal mercy and goodness of our God."

- Leslie Brandt, "Psalms Now"

O God, It Is Difficult To Understand - Psalm 144 - Psalms Now

"O God, it is difficult to understand
how You can regard man with such high regard
and show him so much concern.
His years upon this earth are so few.
He is little more than a wisp of wind
in the time and space of Your great universe.

You created him as the object of Your love -
only to see him turn from You
to play with his foolish toys.
You tried to teach him to love his fellowman -
only to see him express his fear
and suspicion and hate
through cruel acts of violence and war.
You showered upon him Your abundant gifts -
only to see him make them his ultimate concern.

Still You continue to love him
and seek incessantly to save him
from destroying himself and the world
You have placed in his hands.
Even while he rejects You,
You reach out to draw him back to Yourself.
Even while he suffers the painful consequences
of his rank rebelliousness,
You offer to him Your healing
and demonstrate Your desire
to restore him to love and joy."

- Leslie Brandt, "Psalms Now"

Sometimes It Just Isn't Worth It - Psalm 143 - Psalms Now

"It was another one of those days, Lord,
when I should have stayed in bed.
Everything I attempted to do was destined for failure.
I honestly tried to show concern for my fellowman
but got cold shoulders in return.
I tried to speak words of comfort,
and they were thrown right back into my teeth.
I wanted to do well at my job,
but it seemed I just got in everybody's way.

Sometimes it just isn't worth it, Lord,
and I wonder if it isn't time to fold up
and shove off in search of greener pastures.
I want desperately to be a success,
to add points to my score,
or to get commended now and then.
But this didn't happen today, Lord,
and it happens so seldom, I wonder what's wrong.
Am I following Your course for my life,
or am I just muddling through without design?

I need You, God, more now than ever before.
And if I don't get some special lift,
some sense of Your support and encouragement,
I will go right down the tube.

Come closer, O Lord, that I may hear again
Your voice of comfort and concern."

- Leslie Brandt, "Psalms Now"

Where Is My Faith? - Mother Teresa's Doubt

'I think of Agnes. From the time she was a young girl, Agnes believed. Not just believed - she was on fire. She wanted to do great things for God. She said she wanted to "love Jesus as he has never been loved before." She knew Jesus was with her and had an undeniable sense of him calling her. She wrote in her journal., "My soul at present is in perfect peace and joy." She experienced a union with God that was so deep and so continual that it was to her a rapture. She left her home, became a missionary, gave him everything.

And then God left her.

At least, that is how it felt to her. Where is my faith? she wondered. Even deep down there is nothing but emptiness and darkness. . . . . My God, how painful is this unknown pain. . . . . I have no faith. She tried to pray: "I utter words of community prayers - and try my utmost to get out of every word the sweetness it has to give. But my prayer of union is not there any longer. I no longer pray."

On the outside she worked, she served, she smiled. But she spoke of her smile as her "mask, a cloak that covers everything."

This inner darkness and dryness and pain over the absence of God continued on, year after year, with one brief respite, for nearly fifty years. Such was the secret pain of Agnes, who is better know as Mother Teresa.

The letters that expressed her inner torment were a secret during her life, and she asked that they be destroyed. But a strange thing has happened. Her willingness to persist in the face of such agonizing doubts brings comfort and strength to people that an inner life of ease and certainty never could. As in her life she was a servant of the poor, so in her anguish she has become a missionary for those who doubt.

How are we to understand this? It should warn us about easy formulae that are guaranteed to make us feel closer to God. . . . .

Some people, of course, see this as Mother Teresa just battling up against the reality that God isn't really there after all. "She was no more exempt from the realization that religion is a human fabrication than any other person, and that her attempted cure was more and more professions of faith could only have deepened the pit that she had dug for herself," writes Christopher Hitchens. Richard Dawkins warned everyone not to be "taken in by the santimoniously hypocritical Mother Teresa." This, by the way, strikes me as bad strategy. If you are trying to convert people to atheism, taking a shot at Mother Teresa can't be your best move.

But Mother Teresa didn't have this negative understanding. She did not reject God, but neither did she overcome her pain over God's silence. Rather, in a strange way, it became a part of her. A wise spiritual counselor told her three things she needed to hear. One was that there was no human remedy for this darkness. (So she should not feel responsible for it.) Another was that "feeling" the presence of Jesus was not the only or even the primary evidence of his presence. (Jesus himself said by their fruits - not their certainty - you shall know them.) In fact, the very craving for God was a "sure sign" that God was present - though in a hidden way - in her life. And the third bit of wisdom was that the pain she was going through could be redemptive. Jesus himself had to experience the agony of the absence of God: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And as his suffering was redemptive for us, so Mother Teresa could suffer redemptively by holding on to God in the midst of darkness.'

- John Ortberg "Faith & Doubt"

I Am Confused And Lost - Psalm 142 - Leslie Brandt

"I direct my cries to the Lord.
Out of the ear-piercing sounds and
ceaseless turmoil of this concrete jungle
I speak God's name.
For my heart is deeply troubled and depressed,
and I feel weary and faint.

I am confused and lost.
I cannot find my way.
The nameless faces that flit by
take no notice of me.
No one knows my name,
and no one cares.

I turn to You, O God.
You have heard me before,
and You responded to my cries.
Perhaps even amid the frustrating activity
and crowded streets of the great city
You can hear the cries of a lonely child.

O God, deliver me from my prison of loneliness.
Turn my cries of distress
into proclamations of joy.
Direct my steps into the fellowship
of others who love and serve You."

- Leslie Brandt, "Psalms Now"

Curb My Tongue For I Hurt My Friend - Psalm 141 - Leslie Brandt

"O God, I come to You in sorrow and shame.
I spoke up in my own defense today
and uttered words that knifed their way
into the heart of my friend,
and this created a great rift between us.
I would never raise my hand to strike him,
but the tongue is more destructive than the fist,
and I hurt that one whom I love.

Heal the hurt of my friend, O Lord,
and heal the sickness within my heart
that forced my foolish tongue
into such irresponsible actions.

I come to claim Your loving mercy.
I pray, as well, that you grant my friend
the grace to forgive me.
May Your Spirit who abides in my heart
curb and control my rebellious tongue
and teach me to speak words
that give life and promote love
in the hate-ridden world about me."

- Leslie Brandt, "Psalms Now"

Deliver Us From Hostility - Psalm 140 - Leslie Brandt

"O God, deliver our nation and our world
from those men in positions of authority
who resort to violence
to carry out their objectives.
They sweet-talk us into believing
they are acting in our interests,
and brainwash us into blind,
flag-waving allegiance,
until we march by their side
into bloody wars that decimate and destroy
our brothers and sisters
in the family of man.

Deliver all of us, O Lord,
from the notion that anything of value or worth
can be obtained by hostile or violent actions." 

- Leslie Brandt, "Psalms Now"