Deliver My Soul

When you need to remember — that You're still my Shepherd.

You can be the kind of person who does not pick fights, does not raise your voice, does not enjoy conflict — and still find yourself surrounded by people who are looking for one. You try to bring peace into the room, and they take it as weakness or provocation. You speak honestly, and they respond like you started something. You do not need to harden up. You need to remember there is a Lord who hears the cry of the peace-bringer who is sojourning among war-makers, and He still delivers souls from lying lips.

This first ascent prayer opens with the simplest summary of the whole prayer's history: "In my distress I cried to the Lord, and He heard me." Past tense. He has done this before. Crying out has worked. Then the specific request: "Deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips and from a deceitful tongue." Not "vindicate my reputation." Not "let them apologize." Deliver my soul. The damage is internal. The threat is what their lying mouths are doing to him. Then a striking back-and-forth with the deceitful tongue itself: "What shall be given to you? Or what more shall be done to you, you false tongue? Sharp arrows of the mighty, with burning coals of juniper." That is a holy reckoning. The tongue that has been used to wound is going to meet what its actions deserve. Then the geographic loneliness: "Woe is me, that I sojourn in Meshech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!" Meshech and Kedar are far-off, hostile places — symbols of being a stranger surrounded by war-makers. The close is the line that names the heart of every peace-bringer in a war-making room: "My soul has long dwelt with him who hates peace. I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war." That is the loneliest sentence in the whole prayer. He is for peace. They take his speech as a declaration of war.

• Right now, name one specific room or relationship where you are for peace and they are for war — and pray: "Deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips." • Write this down: "Where have I been carrying a war I did not start, simply because I am the peace-bringer in the room?" • Repeat this line when conflict comes back at you for being honest: "I am for peace."

Stop. Breathe. Let the loneliness of being a peace-bringer in a war-making room settle in front of God instead of inside you, then tell Him exactly where you need your soul delivered — out loud if you can.

God, in my distress I cried to You, and You heard me — I want to keep building the prayer life of someone who knows that. Deliver my soul from lying lips and from a deceitful tongue, because what their mouths are doing has been getting inside me. I have long dwelt with people who hate peace, and the loneliness is real. I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war — and I do not want to harden up just to survive. Keep my soul tender and protected at the same time, because that combination is impossible without You. You're still my Shepherd.

The peace-bringer in a war-making room is not weak — the Lord still delivers.