Look on my affliction and deliver me, for I do not forget your law. Plead my cause and redeem me; give me life according to your promise! Salvation is far from the wicked, for they do not seek your statutes. Great is your mercy, O LORD; give me life according to your rules. Many are my persecutors and my adversaries, but I do not swerve from your testimonies. I look at the faithless with disgust, because they do not keep your commands. Consider how I love your precepts! Give me life according to your steadfast love. The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.
Psalm 119:153–160, ESV
I often hear the lament, “Things just seem to be getting worse.” Watching the 24-7 news cycle and all we see, read, and hear would seem to uphold that statement. When one reads the Bible, we find many horrors that occurred in the past. History will also reveal times of horrific violence and maltreatment of people. It is easy to become overwhelmed by it all. But we are reminded in the Word of the power of prayer. Without God, people will do terrible things to other people. It is sadly a part of the sinful and broken nature of our current state. God desires for us to be different. God established standards of how we should treat one another and how we should treat others. Many can become horrified by the violence when entering into the promised land as God was trying to cleanse the land of idolatry, but how much greater violence do we find because the idolatry remains? Standards were established early on how to treat the stranger and the sojourner. When we stand firm in the Word, we will find that those opposed to God will attack, but we are called to stand firm in our witness and not lose sight of our Lord’s promises. Life comes from Him, and we are meant to find comfort not in the things of this world but in Him and Him alone. We stand in our Lord’s mercy, knowing that despite all the evil we see around us, God stands fast. It is true that our world needs a lot more of God. It always has. In this truth, we proclaim Christ and always stand steadfast in His Law that rules our lives as we comfortably know its fulfillment in Christ Jesus.
Let us pray. I thank you, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, your dear Son, that you have kept me this night from all harm and danger, and I ask you to protect me this day also from sin and every evil, that in all I do today, I may please you. For into your hands, I commend myself, my body and soul, and all that is mine. Let your holy angel watch over me, that the wicked foe have no power over me. Amen.