“I hate the two-faced, but I love your clear-cut revelation. You’re my place of quiet retreat; I wait for your Word to renew me. Get out of my life, evildoers, so I can keep my God’s commands. Take my side as you promised; I’ll live then for sure. Don’t disappoint all my grand hopes. Stick with me and I’ll be all right; I’ll give total allegiance to your definitions of life. Expose all who drift away from your sayings; their casual idolatry is lethal. You reject earth’s wicked as so much rubbish; therefore I lovingly embrace everything you say. I shiver in awe before you; your decisions leave me speechless with reverence.”
The intimacy displayed by David, the psalmist, toward God is almost shocking to me. It is almost as intimate as one might speak to a spouse or a lover. There’s daring, there’s pleading, there’s baring, there’s honesty, there’s promises, there’s incredulous pleasure, there’s respect, and there’s friendship. Is your relationship with God as personal as that, gentle reader, or do you maintain only a cool civility?
