8 Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness
because of my enemies—
make straight your way before me.—The words of King David from Psalm 5:8
Have you ever become the target of a whispering campaign? Oh, yes. I know it sounds a bit like a question for junior high or middle school. If you keep up with social networking news, you already know that the modern version of the whispering campaign has flooded the worlds of Facebook and Twitter. Why almost every week the media reports some young teen who has taken his or her own life because of a whispering campaign supercharged by social media.
Sadly, whispering campaigns exist in the adult world, too. And they don’t just focus on relatively trival matters. Sometimes they involve accusations that cut to the heart of an individual’s motivation, beliefs, trustworthiness, or character.
In the Scripture passage at the beginning of this blog post, King David had become the subject of a whispering campaign. As one annointed of God and embued with great power, David—as gentle as he was most of the time—had many people who turned against him. Whether motivated by jealousy or some other sinful trait, these people chose to make David their enemy. Notice I said that they chose to make David their enemy. The enemy-making was not David’s doing. He was the victim, not the perpetrator.
In choosing to make David their enemy, these individuals began to spread lies about David. They took his acts of generosity and kindness and ascribed sinful-sounding motives to explain his actions. They lied about the legitimacy of his annointing. They questioned virtually every aspect of his being. They distorted his plans for Israel. In short, they did everything they could—principally relying on lies and distortions— to turn other people against David and destroy him.
In the midst of this turmoil swirling around him, David reaches out in prayer to the very God of the Universe who has annointed him with authority and power. David humbles himself before the God he serves and asks God to “Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness because of my enemies.”
Instead of trying to change his personality or alter his behavior or compromise his values and beliefs in order to cater to the whims of those telling lies about him, David doubles down by choosing to rely on God as his sure defense. David asks God for a clear pathway to follow.
We know, of course, that God answered David’s cry for help. God not only blesses David, God doubly and triply blesses him. Instead of seeing David diminish in the face of their lies and distortions, the people who have chosen to make David their enemy see David lifted even higher, embued with even greater power, and given success way beyond the initial success that so irritated these people that they tried to destroy David.
The lesson here for us: when people choose to make themselves our enemy, instead of trying to mitigate any aspect of who we are that causes them to hate us, we need to turn to God and ask Him to give us a straight path to follow. God willingly grants us our sure defense. He insulates us from the power of those lies told by the very people who have chosen to make us their enemies. While we continue to allow God to love them through us, and while we pray for them, we need to let God defend us against their attacks.
Will you pray with me?
Thank You, God, for loving us. Thank You for sending Jesus to be our Savior. Thank You for sending us Your Holy Spirit to dwell within us.
Precious Father, we bow before You in gratitude that You are our sure defense. You are the One who will grant us victory over those people who have chosen to make themselves our enemies. Even as you enable us, by Your Holy Spirit, to love these ones who have spoken lies and distortions about us, we pray for them and ask You to draw them to Yourself.
We thank You that You gladly lead us in the pathway of righteousness for the sake of Your Great Name. And, we thank You for hearing our prayer in and through the precious Name of Your Son, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
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