Send Forth Your Lightning, LORD

From the deadly sword deliver me;
    rescue me from the hands of foreigners
    whose mouths are full of lies,
    whose right hands are deceitful.

(Psalm 144:10-11 NIV)

Psalm 144 seems a very fitting prayer for these times, especially in regard to ISIS in the Middle East and jihad terrorists popping up in our own lands. They are the wicked “foreigners” (enemy) we face, whose mouths are full of deceit and whose hands are full of violence.

From their deadly sword, O Lord, deliver us.

My prayer is that God will dismantle them, undermine them and destroy their organization. My preference is that God would do it by giving them dreams and visions of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that they might come and find hope and peace in Him, as so many other Muslims have done in recent days.

Lord, show them the Lord Jesus Christ, how wonderful He is, that they might come to repentance and faith in Him.

But if the wicked will not come to repentance, my prayer is that God would bring them quickly to judgment, that the innocent and the just no longer be afflicted by their cruelties.

Part your heavens, LORD, and come down;
    touch the mountains, so that they smoke.
Send forth lightning and scatter the enemy;
    shoot your arrows and rout them.

(Psalm 144:5-6 NIV)

The desire is not for revenge but for deliverance. The psalm writer does not pray that the enemy — the people themselves — be destroyed but that, as an army, they would be routed and scattered. Vengeance is for the Lord to deal with however He sees fit. But what the psalm writer is looking for instead is this:

Then our sons in their youth
    will be like well-nurtured plants,
    and our daughters will be like pillars
    carved to adorn a palace.
Our barns will be filled
    with every kind of provision.
Our sheep will increase by thousands,
    by tens of thousands in our fields;
    our oxen will draw heavy loads.
There will be no breaching of walls,
    no going into captivity,
    no cry of distress in our streets.

(Psalm 144:12-14 NIV)

It is for the peace of his people and the security of his nation that he prays. Not just for his own generation but for the generations to come — the sons and daughters. It is for the prosperity and fruitfulness for all. That is what I, too, pray for in these times, not just for my family but also for my country. Yes, I am well aware that we have great need of repentance in our own nation, and I pray for that, too, that we may together be a people whose God is Yahweh (the LORD). For the psalm writer concludes:

Blessed is the people of whom this is true;
    blessed is the people whose God is the LORD”

(Psalm 144:15 NIV)