My morning Scripture reading includes a Psalm everyday, so I end up reading through the book of Psalms 3 to 4 times in an 18 month period. Not to long ago I started back at the first one again and quickly found myself at the 23rd. As many of you it is one of my favorite Psalms, part of it is because it is one of the earliest pieces of Scripture that I truly knew by heart but the other part of it is a product of Texas A&M and the Fish Drill Team. For those of you who have never heard of the drill team, it is a precision rifle drill team made up entirely of Freshman much like the Marine Corps Silent Drill Team. At Texas A&M all freshman are called fish, hence the name Fish Drill Team. Before every competition we prayed the Fish Drill Team prayer, which was a modified PG-13 version of the 23rd Psalm. I can't recall the whole prayer today, but the phrase I do remember is "yea though I walk through the valley of death I will fear no evil, because I am the meanest, baddest, ?#@%&$# in the land." We were national champions. We were tough. We were bold, arrogant and obnoxious. We were in no way Godly, but we did pray this prayer before every meet, but we did understand this part correctly. We were not afraid to confront any evil, any competition, any challenge that life presented us because we were confident in ourselves. Where we failed to understand is that self confidence only goes so far, true confidence must come from a trust and love of God that transforms our hearts.
I bring it up in this post because as I was re-reading the 23rd Psalm for the I don't know how many hundredth time this is the phrase that really caught my attention.
"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me." Psalm 23:4What struck me was the confrontation of evil. David doesn't ask God to help him escape evil or to protect him from evil, or to make sure he never encounters evil in his life. He just confidently states that because God is with him, comforting him, he will fear no evil. There is evil in this world. It was in the garden with the serpent, it is alive and well today. If you are unsure about this truth, simply watch the five o'clock news and you will have it confirmed in the first two minutes. As Christians we could try to insult ourselves from that evil by building isolated communities, walled away and hidden from the "evil" world but to do so would be to fail at the mission God has called us to which is the transformation of the world.
God has called us to live in the world, evil or no evil, because He knows that we have the power within us through the indwelling Holy Spirit to eradicate the presence of evil in this world. God is not going to have us escape such evil, He is going to comfort us amidst it so that we will not be afraid. With God confidence we can face any obstacle, challenge or evil this world throws at us and overcome. When we have no fear and are confident in God's love for us, we become free to love and it is the love of God that truly eradicates evil and transforms the world.
God is with us. We need not fear. Can we walk together through this world eradicating evil with love?
Your brother in Christ,
Faron
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