Daily Lesson for February 25, 2022

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 140 verses 1 through 3:

To the leader. A Psalm of David.

1 Deliver me, O Lord, from evildoers;

protect me from those who are violent,

2 who plan evil things in their minds

and stir up wars continually.

3 They make their tongue sharp as a snake’s,

and under their lips is the venom of vipers.

Selah

This morning's Psalm is a particularly poignant one given the events yesterday and today in Ukraine.

Our hearts break for what is happening to the people there.

We shame also in our unwillingness to do more to stop the attack.

I think of Reinhold Niebuhr's book "The Irony of American History" and what he called the necessary "modesty about the virtue, wisdom and power available to us for the resolution of [the world's] perplexities" and "contrition about the common human frailties and foibles which lie at the foundation of both the enemy's demonry and our vanities".

In other words, being a superpower ain't all it's cracked up to be. There are limitation to our power. And there are vanities in both our action and inaction.

This is where the words of the Psalmist are of some comfort this morning.

A violent, evildoer has stirred up war in the world. We are in part restrained in what we can do to respond in the West. But we must not be guiled into thinking our restraint is an act of superior virtue. It is both an act and inaction of realpolitik, self-preservation, and exasperation.

Exasperation may be the right word. The psalm concludes with the word "Selah". No one quite knows what it means. It may be a musical score direction. Or, relatedly, it may be a kind of note to a singer -- a breath mark.

Peaceful people are under attack. Prominent allies will soon be searched for. A free nation is in the throes of a madman.

But there is not much we can do immediately. To escalate to global war would be catastrophic. We must be sensible. In some ways our enemies are counting on us to be sensible. This is the irony of the American and world history right now.

So what is there to do? Breathe. And pray. Ask wisdom and good counsel for sane minds and sound plans. And trust, as the Psalmist later says in the Psalm, that

"the Lord maintains the cause of the needy,

and executes justice for the poor."

Selah

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.