Psalm 14’s Elusive One Psalm 14 reads as follows from the Oxford Annotated Bible: Fools say in their hearts,” There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; There is no one who does good. The Lord looks down fro heaven on humankind, To see is any who are wise, who seek after God, They have all gone astray, they are all alike perverse, There is no one who does good, No not one. They have all gone astray, they are all alike perverse, There is not one who does good, No, not one, Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers, Who eat up my people as they eat bread, And do not call upon the Lord? There they shall be in great terror, For God is in the company of the righteous, You would confound the plans of the poor, But the Lord is their refuge. Or that deliverance for Israel would come from Zion, When the Lord restores the fortunes of his people, Jacob will rejoice, Israel will be glad. This psalm portrays the Lord looking for and not finding the one. More positively, this shows just how important the one can be in the context of what the Lord is looking for. Not even one, also means even one. Even one person can be the difference maker for the Lord. Even one person can be whom the Lord is seeking as he is looking down from heaven. While prayer with others is meaningful, you can be the lone ranger in prayer and it can count all the way to heaven. Why, because the Lord looks down from heaven and it not finding even one. But the one that is found, and found praying and seeking the Lord, reaches back all the way to heaven in prayer, as the Lord is looking and finding this one person. The positive portrait of this psalm, is that you could be the one in prayer, it could be you. The focal point of a particular prayer intercession on the whole planet, could be one person who could be you. At the same time, the view given by this psalm is quite sobering. Those observed in this psalm passed by, the walked right past the opportunity presented to be the one. Other things were deemed more important. The seeking that was done, wasn’t along the lines of being the one who is seeking the Lord in prayer. Yes, these people were seeking, who knows what, but it wasn’t the Lord. The proximity of their thinking wasn’t on the Lord and his ways, and this was their choice. They had turned aside from seeking the Lord. This turned aside seemed to have a collective, or follow the heard mentality. Everyone had turned aside, as it seemed the thing to do and all in all considered other pursuits more important. This turning had reached the point of the belief that there was no God, indeed no one was watching for the one. Somehow the utter dominance of the Lord over all, became as lost vision. You could speculate that the turning aside was something to where either self or others had become to big. You could see how this could happen. You see this vast seas of people, you want to connect with them, be like them, interact like them or with them. But the crowd itself becomes the only vision. In wanted to be with the crowd, you become the crowd and the vision and importance of the one is shaded away in meaning. Indeed, this turning away involved a process that was collective. This psalm points to the importance and the cultivated ability to stand alone in a personal vision of the Lord. Indeed, the vision was that the Lord was in heaven and was looking down for the one. This was the correct personal vision that should have been had and also lived. Those present should have lived with the personal vision that the Lord was indeed looking down on the one and knowing who was seeking him and calling upon him or praying. The citing of the Lord’s presence was lost and this has the tendency to corrupt, which is what happened. Maybe at first things went well, but the absence of the Lord in the lives of these people began to involve a turn towards that which is corrupt. The link to the Lord had been broken, it is almost then like a lifeline that had been broken. Maybe at first the lost lifeline in the initial drift isn’t blatantly dangerous, but as the drift continues, the dangers begin to lurk further. There are some examples of this in Isaiah. For example is says in Isaiah, Chapter 30 verse 1 and 2 in the King James version of the Bible,” Woe to the rebellious children saith the Lord, that take counsel, but not of me, and that cover with a covering, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin: That walk to go down into Egypt and have not asked my mouth, to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt. They basically trusted in the rule and prosperity of the time, which emanated from Egypt, and bypassed consultation with the Lord. It wasn’t that they were maybe outright insidious, but they trusted in the visible glories of the land more than the Spirit of the Lord and later to the exclusion of the Spirit of the Lord. They let, “ The shadow of Egypt” emanate fully to who they were. As they became elusive, they hid from the Lord in the shadow of Egypt. For example, if I’m swimming off a boat and there is a rope for me if necessary, in the middle of the big ocean and I leave this lifeline, I might not at first be in apparent danger but soon enough whatever is lurking in and on the sea can be more than I can handle. I could have enjoyed the swim and freedom of it, but I needed to keep the lifeline nearby. There was a movie a couple of years ago given this type of scene called Open Waters, a movie that did not have a happy ending. In the movie, people were diving as tourists from a tour boat which was watching for them as they emerged, yet a mistake was made and two people lost their connection to the lifeline of those who were watching nearby. As the lifeline was lost, what emerged was the fullest dangers of the open waters. Just losing their lifeline within the day, was enough to bring disaster. Whatever I want to imbibe in, I need to maintain my lifeline to the Lord and not think because of momentary joys or successes that this lifeline isn’t necessary because we do operate in something that has equivalent dangers to what are found say in the open waters of the seas. Then, part of my own lifeline, might be the ability to intercede. This vast intercessions, in some way reverberate back to me as the one who is interceding. It is important, it does make a difference because just the one, just the one prayer, is what the Lord is looking for. This is something that once had, should be soberly assessed as something that you do not want to lose. Your ability to intercede is like a lifeline that needs to be maintained and kept as such. The Lord will let you know clearly in specific instances that indeed it was your prayer that made the difference. Part of the disbelief in God that is expressed in this psalm, is the disbelief that one person does count, one person is looked for all the way down from heaven, one person’s prayers can be heard all the way to heaven and one person’s prayers can make all the difference in the whole world. To not believe this, it to begin to go into the corruption that is described here in this psalm. Other things take precedence of the exceeding importance of the one and of the one who calls upon and seeks the Lord, both for herself and others. While other things can be pursued, whatever it is, the most important thing to do according to this psalm is to seek the Lord or call upon him in prayer, as the one who the Lord is looking for. So while there are a tremendous amount of people on the earth, the way to see yourself in prayer is to see yourself as the one, as the one who the Lord is looking for, as the one whose prayers count and as the one who has not turned aside and ceased calling upon the Lord and seeking him in prayer. This is why the prayer journey is a journey that you never let go on. According to this psalm, this is the journey that takes precedence and when someone says, one person isn’t going to make a difference, this is a lie from the corruption that swells from the turning aside from the Lord in prayer. Verse 2 speaks of understanding and knowing. Those who as the one are seeking the Lord in prayer, being to know and begin to understand that there one prayer or prayers, is a difference maker, and the Lord does see them and search for them as the one, and this is something that they do know from the witness of the Holy Spirit. The secret of this psalm is that not only are you the one, the Lord will let you know here and now that is it you that he is looking for and not only can you believe this, you can KNOW this. An example of the elusive one, is Jonah, who initially did not heed to the call, yet we see clearly from the story that God let him know. In the story, you also see a collective going away from the Lord in the great city. Yet a chance to turn back is given. This psalm is about being careful, careful to know that you are the one, and maybe that elusive one. The key is not to be or to no longer be the elusive one and heed the call and indeed more fully to the call.
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