Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Monday October 17, 2011

One of the more humorous curses we wish upon another is the old "May the fleas of a thousand camels rest in your armpits." This is funny to anyone to who has not suffered from one thousand refugees hiding from a camel.

We all seem to have a way of making enemies. I know several people who are professional at this work. I have never read a book in which the selling point was How to Win Enemies and Influence People. Read this book and more people than you ever dreamed will utterly detest you.

Along life's enemy littered trail we tend to make an enormous PR mistake. We forget to pay attention, even homage to those few, mighty few precious ones who remain friends through thick and thin.

This idea struck me; ideas have to strike me for I am assured by large numbers of friends and foes alike that I lack the common sense figure out most things. Anyhow, I was reading and getting ready to rant on Psalm 35. David is the acknowledged author, but no two experts can agree as to just when, what era of his checkered life he penned the grand words. It was written in response to a time of trouble but then David was as Job said, "born to trouble as the sparks fly upward."

David goes on and on about dirty tricks people have played on him and are continuing to do to him, but for a brief verse he pauses to praise those who stuck by him through the multitude of difficulties that peppered his life. Notice in Psalms 35:27 "Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favour my righteous cause: yea, let them say continually, Let the LORD be magnified, which hath pleasure in the prosperity of his servant." (Emphasis mine) We can learn valuable lessons from this verse. It is too easy to spend all of our time focusing on the mean tricks life and people have played on us, but we can only have inner victory when we pause to thank God for and pray for those who have blessed us in some way.

That David had been woefully wronged is stated in Psalms 35:13-14:

"But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth: I humbled my soul with fasting; and my prayer returned into mine own bosom. I behaved myself as though he had been my friend or brother: I bowed down heavily, as one that mourneth for his mother."

The sting of the attack was all the more painful when David recalled the good things he had done for those who were now against him. I knew a famous evangelist who founded what became a large Christian University. When he or the school would come under attack he would call the workers in his radio station into the conference room and ask about the attackers, "What have we ever done for them?" He would chuckle and continue about his Father's business.

In my humble opinion anyone who gets anything of account done for Jesus will meet Job's "sparks flying upward" idea of life. The key to making life worthwhile is to lean on Jesus and keep on trucking with a song in your heart even though a tear is scalding your cheek. David knew and practiced this truth and so must we who are called to walk with Christ.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2011 Use with credit.

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