"Hurry Up, God!"

Scripture

Psalm 70

¹   Be pleased, O God, to deliver me.
          O LORD, make haste to help me!
²   Let those be put to shame and confusion
          who seek my life.
     Let those be turned back and brought to dishonor
          who desire to hurt me.
³   Let those who say, “Aha, Aha!”
          turn back because of their shame.
⁴   Let all who seek you
          rejoice and be glad in you.
     Let those who love your salvation
          say evermore, “God is great!”
⁵   But I am poor and needy;
          hasten to me, O God!
          You are my help and my deliverer;
          O LORD, do not delay!  (NRSV)

Devotion

 The Bible is full of of moments when people who are in trouble turn to God for help.  Sometimes, as in the story of the Exodus, we get to see God answer their pleas.  Other times, we just see the people's request and are left to fill in the blanks about how God responded.  Such is the case with many of the psalms.

Approximately half of the Bible's 150 Psalms are songs of lament.  In these pieces, speakers afflicted with all sorts of calamities beg God for help.  A couple of the things that make Psalm 70 unique are its brevity and sense of urgency.    Rev. Dr. Joel Marcus LeMon of Emory University unpacks 4 basic ways that psalmist shows us the people's desperation:

1. The psalm's brevity and directness implies that the speaker has no time to waste on the flowery language or lofty rhetoric that is found in many other psalms of lament.
2. Speakers repeat God's name over and over, as if they believe that if they just say it enough, the Holy One will pay attention to them right away.
3. The use of words like "hasten" and "do not delay" show there is no time to waste.  The speaker needs help now!
4. The grammar of the Hebrew, shows that the speaker is relentless in insisting God answer them. (237)

 Simply put, the people who recite this psalm are desperate for God's immediate help.  Psalm 70 urges the Holy One to get a move on--to show up as soon as possible.

Like the psalmist, many of us are begging God to swoop in and save us right now. We want a vaccine for COVID not tomorrow or even today.  We want it yesterday.  As bills come due and we run low on groceries, we want God to inspire our leaders to immediatly fix things.  I can't even begin to count the number of times I've heard someone say that life needs to get back to normal as soon as possible.  Like small children whose sure we've been forgotten, we say, "Hey God!  Hey God!  Look over here!  We need help."    

The Good News is that even as we desperately seek God's attention, our Deliverer is already working among us.  God is found in all the many ways the Holy Spirit is inspiring everyday people to find new ways of  helping one another.   God is guiding our healthcare workers and leaders.  God is there to hold the hands of the dying and the grief-stricken when no one else can.  God's presence can be found everywhere if only we know how to look.  Things might not resolve as quickly as we would like, but our Savior knows the urgency of our need.  He will deliver us in his own time and his own way. 
 
We don't know how quickly the original speakers of Psalm 70 got out of their desperate situation, but we do know that God was there.  What's more, we can find hope in their trust that no matter how urgent the situation became, the LORD would deliver them.  Like those who went before us, we will discover that even though things might not be resolved at the pace we want or that seem miraculous, God is here to get us through this time of trial. 

When things seem more dire, hopeless or urgent then usual, let's channel the faith of the psalmist.  Let's forget the flowery words and just tell God that we need help now.  We can make that plea as often as we need to, because unlike a frustrated human parent, our Deliverer never tires of hearing us beg for attention.  After we've asked for God to hasten to us, let's take a look around and see if we can find evidence of God already working on our behalf.  Though we may not always see it, the Holy One had already hastened to our side long ago.  God is here, and he will deliver us.

Prayer

Today's prayer is listening/singing along to Psalm 70.

Works Cited

Joel Marcus Lemon.  "Psalm 70: Exegetical Perspective" in Feasting on the Word, , edited by David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor. Year A, Volume 2, 237-41.  Louisville, KY:  Westminster John Know Press, 2010.