The Eyes of the Lord Are Upon the Righteous

Psalm 34:15-22

The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous,
and his ears are open to their cry.

The face of the Lord is against those who do evil,
to root out the remembrance of them from the earth.

The righteous cry, and the Lord hears them
and delivers them from all their troubles.

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted
and will save those whose spirits are crushed.

Many are the troubles of the righteous,
but the Lord will deliver him out of them all.

He will keep safe all his bones;
not one of them shall be broken.

Evil shall slay the wicked,
and those who hate the righteous will be punished.

The Lord ransoms the life of his servants,
and none will be punished who trust in him.

At some point in life, most all of us confront the confounding yet all-too-obvious reality that terrible things happen to good people while many people who do terrible things seem to face no consequences. Most often it is through deeply personal experiences that this realization forces itself upon us—an unexpected diagnosis of serious illness, the death of a loved one at a far too young age, senseless tragedy that seems to have no explanation, loss of job or opportunity due to factors completely outside our control. Such moments can leave us disoriented, angry, searching for answers in the face of what feels like unfair, unjust, random happenings. For people of faith, theological questions naturally emerge as well: why me? why so much suffering? why did God allow this to happen?

These are difficult, honest, and necessary questions for us to ask. They are indeed questions that humans have asked throughout our long history and relationship with God. The book of Job is a quintessential expression of this faithful struggle to seek understanding in the midst of suffering that feels unjust and undeserved. It serves as one example of what Scripture has to say about this perennial human experience. This portion of psalm 34 offers us another way to consider it. The psalmist says, “The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous…The face of the Lord is against those who do evil. Many are the troubles of the righteous, but the Lord will deliver him out of them all.” I would suggest we consider these seemingly confident words of the psalmist as both an expression of belief in what is spoken as well as a prayer offered that it might indeed be true—not unlike the declaration of a father who comes to Jesus seeking healing for his son: “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).

Although we trust that God is on the side of the righteous and opposed to the wicked, the problem, of course, is that in life it often does not seem that way. We live in a world not as God intended it at creation but in the reality of humanity’s fall. Given the freedom to make our own decisions, we do not always choose the good, and so we live with the consequences. Faith does not offer a tidy answer or an instant solution in such moments, but it does offer us this comfort, one that is by no means insignificant: “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and will save those whose spirits are crushed.” God is not far off but with us in our suffering, never leaving us or forsaking us.

prayer

O God, you have given us the Good News of your abounding love in your Son Jesus Christ: So fill our hearts with thankfulness that we may rejoice to proclaim the good tidings we have received; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

(Lesser Feasts and Fasts, 2006, p. 54)

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