Trusting in God

An allegorical image depicting the human heart subject to the seven deadly sins,
each represented by an animal (clockwise: toad = greed; snake = envy; lion = wrath;
snail = sloth; pig = greed; goat = lust; peacock = pride)

Reflection at Morning Worship with the Community of Brendan the Navigator on Tuesday 9th December 2025

Psalm 56, which we have just heard, is set for this Tuesday in the Common Lectionary. It is an urgent plea for God to deliver us from our adversaries.

Heaven knows, there are all too many people in the world today who cry out with the psalmist, ‘My adversaries trample over me all the day long; many are they that make proud war against me’. Those in Ukraine, in the Middle East, in Sudan, and all the other war torn parts of the world, who shelter in terror, or flee in fear. Those in the United States of America, who dread armed and masked ICE agents placing a hand on their shoulder. For the most part we in peaceful Ireland feel safe from such violence, but even here immigrants on the street, and refugees in IPAS centres, fear attack by racist thugs. It is a harsh indictment of our broken world that so many are trampled over, assaulted, and oppressed.

But our adversaries are not just wicked human beings. They include the economic forces that damage this God given, fruitful planet, and the social conditions that engender the poverty and disadvantage that mar our society.

And our adversaries are not just outside ourselves. They are also within us: the seven deadly sins of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. Perhaps my own most pernicious adversary is self-pity, as my aging body and increasing frailty limits what I would wish to do to resist the evil forces that ‘assault and oppress me’.

But our loving Father God does not will any adversary to cause pain to any of his children, and is faithful in his love for us. Through the eyes of his Son he sees our distress, and his Holy Spirit gently wipes our tears away. He ‘counts up (our) groaning, puts (our) tears into his bottle’, in the psalmist’s words.

The psalmist declares, ‘To you, O God, will I fulfil my vows; to you will I present my offerings of thanks, for you will deliver my soul from death and my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living’. When we place our trust in God, his Holy Spirit will lift our spirit up, so that we can endure any assault, and so overcome any adversary.