Psalm 4 Continued…
On April 4, 1864, in a letter to Albert Hodges, Abraham Lincoln wrote, “If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the North as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therin new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God.”
In the midst of the Civil War, President Lincoln was willing to acknowledge that the North too was complicit in the “great wrong” of this horrific war that divided the nation. We have a tendency, in conflict, to see the other person as the “unholy enemy” and ourselves as “the righteous victim.” The reality is that in almost every conflict, we bear some burden of responsibility, if even limited to what we are thinking about the other person or persons.
Even if we are beyond reproach in that conflict, we too are sinners in need of God’s mercy.
In this Psalm and in Psalm 3, we have seen David, the victim of Absalom’s revolt and betrayal, acknowledge that he too is in need of God’s mercy. David’s contribution was actually his abdication of his role as father.
We all know David had many great qualities and he was a man after God’s own heart but we have to acknowledge that one of his greatest flaws was that he was a passive father. His passivity as a father led to problems with three of his children, that ultimately resulted in their deaths (Amnon, Absalom and Adonijah).
Passivity as a parent will only help and enable your child to rebel from the One True King. David had a part to play in the rebellion of his son Absalom. He knew that. That is part of the reason he lamented as he did in Psalm 3.
Whatever conflict we may find ourselves in, we always have a role to play in that. The great challenge for us, when we feel we have been wronged, is to have a balanced perspective where we recognize not only the other person’s sin but our own need for God’s grace.
PRAY
Father God, help me to see my own need for your mercy. Especially in those times where I have so easily seen it in other’s lives. Help me to know, when I am wronged, that I have wronged you as well. Let me, in those moments, be filled more with compassion and forgiveness than anger.