Overcoming Traumatic Events
The next section of verses are called imprecatory, which means that the author is telling God what he wishes would happen to the offender.
Verses 6-20 say, “Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand. When he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer become sin. Let his days be few; and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labour. Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children. Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out. Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the LORD; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out. Let them be before the LORD continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth. Because that he remembered not to shew mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy man, that he might even slay the broken in heart. As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him: as he delighted not in blessing, so let it be far from him. As he clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment, so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones. Let it be unto him as the garment which covereth him, and for a girdle wherewith he is girded continually. Let this be the reward of mine adversaries from the LORD, and of them that speak evil against my soul.”
Now you may be inclined to reprimand David for expressing those things, but if you are honest with yourself, you have felt the same way.
The Devil has a way of using those things to accuse you. He may have said to you that a Christian wouldn’t feel that way. You may have even convinced yourself that it was sin to even have those feelings.
Let’s take a reality check.
David was a man after God’s own heart; there was no one closer to God. Reading the Psalms, you see a man who was very yielded to God, and even David had those feelings. He even wrote a song about them. He told God about how he felt.
Did you know that it is OK to tell God how you feel? He knows anyway, so you are not hiding it from Him. God created you with feelings. It is not OK to react to life based on your feelings, but you are going to have feelings. The wonderful thing about feelings is that they can be changed. David begins that change in the next verse as he declares what he wants God to do for him.
Verse 21 says, “But do thou for me, O GOD the Lord, for thy name’s sake: because thy mercy is good, deliver thou me.”
David wanted what everyone who has experienced traumatic events in life wants: mercy and deliverance. David has been honest with God. In the same way, it is important to bear your heart to God.
Psalm 51:6 “Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.”
God will not save someone until they confess their sin in repentance. Understand that David was not coming to force God to do his own will; he was simply confessing to God that he has had these feelings toward someone else. Then saying in effect, “But God, I don’t want these feelings, what I really want is mercy and deliverance. I want to be delivered from the pain that is in my heart right now. I want you to show mercy on me and give me peace instead of hurt.”
Be careful that you do your confessing to God and not to other people. It can become sin if you let it become gossip. God is not glorified in the bad feelings themselves, He is glorified in the fact that you bring them to Him recognizing that He is the only one that can deliver you from them.
