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Psalm 74:18-19  Remember this, O LORD, how the enemy scoffs, and a foolish people reviles your name.  Do not deliver the soul of your dove to the wild beasts; do not forget the life of your poor forever.

This Psalm of Asaph is a lament, probably written for the people to give expression to the deepest feelings of their hearts as they witnessed the savage destruction of their sacred Temple, their Covenant LORD’s dwelling place among them, at the hands of the ruthless, boastful, powerful Babylonian army.

God’s Covenant people were struggling with what the Babylonian conquest meant in terms of the LORD’s promises to David and Solomon to lead them in victory over the nations and to dwell among them forever (2 Samuel 7:8-16)!  Psalm 137 tells us of the mockery they were subject to when they were captive exiles in Babylon!  How were they to interpret all these historical facts?  Understandably, the lament in Psalm 74 comes from a nation of humiliated people who were depending wholly on, and crying out to, their Sovereign LORD to act on their behalf.

This provides a good model for our prayer life as we struggle to witness in a culture that is comfortable in mocking God’s name and his Word by advocating, accepting, and even legislating for, practices that fly directly in the face of God’s revealed truth.  It seems that the ‘culture war’ in which we are embattled, and are ‘losing’ from a purely human perspective, is calling, not for triumphalism and making demands on our God, but for humble, contrite prayer that God will defend his own name, and that, in the obvious ‘poverty’ and vulnerability of our current circumstances, like ‘doves’ at the mercy of ‘wild beasts’, he will ‘remember’ the promise Jesus gave us that “[he] will build [his] church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18).

Jesus gave this promise to his disciples in the context of warning them that following him would involve suffering, persecution, and a ‘taking up their cross’ – ‘losing’ the ‘whole world’ in order to ‘gain’ their ‘soul’.

“Courage, brother! do not stumble, though your path be dark as night; there’s a star to guide the humble: trust in God, and do the right. Let the road be rough and dreary, and its end far out of sight; foot it bravely; strong or weary, trust in God, and do the right.  Perish policy and cunning, perish all that fears the light!  Whether losing, whether winning, trust in God, and do the right.  Some will hate you, some will love you, some will flatter, some will slight; heed them not, and look above you; trust in God, and do the right.” (Norman MacLeod)

– Bruce Christian