Week 19 Psalm 66
Sixty-six is an I-was-in-trouble-and-the-Lord-helped-me psalm.
The writer prayed to the Lord in his time of distress. He promised a desperation promise. Now the trouble is past and he isn’t feeling as panicked. But I’m still going to the temple he says: to fulfil the vows I made to you – yes, the sacred vows you heard me make when I was in deep trouble. A deep-trouble vow.
I remember a very short fiction story about a world-war one soldier who was under fire and was praying a desperation prayer:
While the bombardment was knocking the trench to pieces at Fossalta, he lay very flat and sweated and prayed oh jesus christ get me out of here. Dear jesus please get me out. Christ please please please christ. If you’ll only keep me from getting killed I’ll do anything you say. I believe in you and I’ll tell everyone in the world that you are the only one that matters. Please please dear jesus.
The shelling moved further up the line. We went to work on the trench and in the morning the sun came up and the day was hot and muggy and cheerful and quiet.
The next night back at Mestre he did not tell the girl he went upstairs with at the Villa Rosa about Jesus. And he never told anybody.
Notes: Quotes from Psalm 66:13-14 (NLT version); and “Chapter VII” in Ernest Hemingway The Complete Short Stories (NY: Scribner’s, 1987) 109 (paragraph breaks added).