Reflections by Keith Funk

These simple words from the psalmist affirm an underlying reality which is to govern all our activities. How easy it is to lose sight of this when we find ourselves frustrated over situations and circumstances about us. These are days where we are barraged with media. The result of all of this leaves many of us in a state of disquiet. It is hard not to be anxious and dare I say offended. We may want to respond by initiating some correction through the expression of word or opinion by which we will set things right, or that at the very least offer our critique over the state of things we may be assessing and encountering.

I would invite us to take pause at this point and for a quiet moment listen to the psalmist in Psalm 34. The words here are wonderfully descriptive of God’s attentiveness to those who call on him. The Lord is ever near as one who provides refreshment and refuge for those who face want and fear. The Lord is one who helps, frees and delivers. While the heading to Psalm 34 recalls the story of how David feigned madness before a Philistine king to save himself from probable capture and injury in 1 Samuel 21, the Psalm speaks to all of us of God’s presence where difficulty, distress, and danger preside. And all of this whether we are at our best, or more, at our worst.

With assuring descriptions in this Psalm, there are also patient imperatives like that of verses 13-14:
                                                               Keep your tongue from evil,
                                                               and your lips from speaking deceit.
                                                               Depart from evil, and do good;
                                                               seek peace and pursue it.

In both the language of assuring descriptions and the patient imperatives, there is the message of God’s centrality amid life’s struggles. Oh, to be sure, from this we take assurance; but from this we also govern our responses, and particularly when things are not as they should be. Such is the way of peace; such is the way of living for shalom.

Very often, evil operates at a subtle level.  It is here where we are called to vigilance. We can be co-opted into thinking that evil expresses itself only through what are obvious assertions and actions. But where we may more readily go amiss is colluding with evil in self-justifying assumptions.

May we be reminded, wherever we are and in whatever we do, we live in the presence of God. As such, may ours be the priority pursued of seeking peace (shalom). We do in the assurance and challenge of living with the God who is with us. And in do doing, hearkening to others of the God who is with us and whose ways fully are the ways of shalom. May we ever pursue the ways of shalom as our priority in word and activity, and beyond our agendas.