One of my favorite shows on television is Big Brother. If you are not familiar with this program, the basic premise is that a bunch of strangers are placed into a house full of cameras, are not allowed to leave, compete in competitions, and week by week, vote a member of the house out until there is just one person left standing. One of the most difficult aspects of the show is being stuck in the same house for potentially 3 months and not being able to leave…I think we all can appreciate how hard that is at this point in quarantine! One of the key elements of the game are the “alliances” where portions of the house band together to vote others out. The fun ensues when alliances break up or eventually have to turn on each other because, let’s face it, only one person can win.
Not only do I love Big Brother, but my kids do, my friends do, and their kids do. So when we are all together the kids will play their own version of Big Brother with games, voting, and chaos. The problem is that eventually you have to vote people out. Since they are all friends or siblings, people feel betrayed immediately. I don’t know that they have ever played a game of Big Brother where someone, or multiple someones, didn’t cry. It got to the point that when we all got together we had to ban Big Brother so we didn’t have to deal with the fall out.
People do not like it when they feel as though someone they are close with turns on them.
In Psalm 55, we can read and really feel the hurt David is going though because of the betrayal of a friend. In verse 1-11 we can see how in anguish he is over his situation. The hardest part to read is verse 12-14. David is remembering the good times he had with this friend, even walking through the house of God with them. When a friend does something that hurts us, it is hard to wrap our minds around. It flips so many things! A place in your heart that was used for love becomes bitter. Good memories become bad ones. A person you would turn to now becomes someone you avoid.
I dare say we have all been there at some point in our life in one fashion or another.
Verses 15-22 provide a template for dealing with such pain. We lean not on our own understanding but on that of the Lord. We trust not in our anger but in the God who hears our distress. We do not seek vengeance for ourselves because we serve the One who judges the quick and dead.
We live in a world broken by sin so we should not be surprised when people let us down. It will happen, and it will hurt. There is only one thing we can do, and it is found in the last part of the last verse…“But as for me, I trust in you”.
Trust in the Lord in all things.
VC Devotionals 