"O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more." Psalm 39:13
While the King was measuring his life by the precepts of the scriptures, he glanced at those bowing before him in fain adoration. He noticed the dagger-like looks at him... coming from the dark corners of the room ....while they thought he was not looking; but he held his tongue. While he was musing, he began to hear, within his heart, one of the sweet songs of praise that he had written while under the stars of the Bethlehem sky not that long ago keeping watch over sheep.
As the song played in his heart, a fire was kindled and began to burn within him ... Then he spoke: "Lord, bend my focus to know that I have an end, that I am not eternally invincible, and help me to begin to value my days. In that valuation, let me know my frail nature against the backdrop of your awesome eternal power. I stretch out my hand and realize that my life in my hands is not much longer than that fragile span, and that my age is nothing when I measure that against You; for every man in his most excellent moment is nothing more than nothing."
And the song played on as he bowed his spirit in a broken and all but crushed worship. Reality opened an assault on his lust of the flesh, his lust of the eyes and his pride of life. He saw that his walk, as well as all other men, was without eternal substance and significance; and his pious quiet moments, while shuffling proudly through his riches was a vain exercise because those riches would no doubt end up being gathered by strangers. The king also realized that every stroke that bruised his life, every backhanded blow of cruel correction, every rebuke for his stepping aside when no one was watching ... Was beginning to dry him up and all of his superficial glory was consuming away like the dry dead moth dust. And why... because he had learned the sweet taste of stolen bread and the numbing deathlike peace of the sleep under the strong drink of this worlds delusions.
"Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear unto my cry; hold not Thy peace at my tears; for I am a stranger ... with Thee, and a sojourner ... As all my fathers were."
The King's brokenness was real as he called out to God -"O spare that gaze that can cast me away, look and consider me; that I may recover the strength of my smile which is Thy smile, before I try to move one step more ... For without your help to recover the joy of Thy salvation, I will be no more."
We dress in solidarity and we act in uniformity. We are proud of our conformity, though lost in purposeful ambiguity and pompous regality. "The wretched cause" has controlled us in our choice of identity to the point ... that we think that our stubborn appearance tells all on-lookers that "we are strong and we are right"; but in reality, even the simple see that we look exactly like the spoiled, selfish children that we are. Like the long line the misguided actors that are added to failing history, we take our stand like so many other white washed mausoleums that have stood against the storms of time; but inside our hearts are sullen, rotting and fading as we draw further away from His eternal provision of real and lasting Grace Life. The Smile of God is Gone!
"O Spare us, that we may recover Your Smile."
HLFA,
Jeff