to suffer for seeking god's glory - psalm 69 - 17th week saturday

Psalm 69 is a prayer of David as an afflicted man, a man suffering tremendously because of the cruelty of his enemies.  He describes his pains like that of a man overwhelmed because he is sinking in mud, or drowned by floodwaters – "Let not the flood-waters overwhelm me, nor the abyss swallow me up, nor the pit close its mouth over me."  But David was not suffering because of his sins or because of some injustice that he has done in the past.  No.  Rather he is suffering because of his zeal for the glory of God.

It is different when suffering is brought upon you because you did not study for the exams, or you defy your superiors, or you are obese which consequently brought upon you high blood pressure, difficulty in breathing beside being ugly, because you cannot control food.  Psalm 69 is different – it is a cry of someone who suffer so much because in his life he only sought the glory of God.

This psalm although written by David is called a messianic psalm because it expresses the experience of Jesus himself, his experience of being denied and accused wrongly, of being made to suffer because he sought to do God's will, it speaks of his passion and death on the cross.  Jesus suffered because of his zeal for the glory of God.

Probably some can relate to this psalm when you have to deny the natural love for home and family for the sake of your service in the church.  Or when you preach and teach God's word and some people get hurt in the process earning for yourself their ire and hatred.  Or when you stand for what is right even if your friends threaten and make good their threat to desert you.  Or when you have to break up with a person you really love and care about for the sake of your vocation. 

That is why this is a prayer which cries for help, yet it still manages to end in thanksgiving – "I will praise the name of God in song, and I will glorify him with thanksgiving."  Because though you suffer and are in pain you know that these have meaning and a higher purpose and call.