¹ Hear, O LORD, my righteous plea;
listen to my cry.
Give ear to my prayer—
it does not rise from deceitful lips.

² May my vindication come from you;
may your eyes see what is right.

³ Though you probe my heart and examine me at night,
though you test me, you will find nothing;
I have resolved that my mouth will not sin.

⁴ As for the deeds of men—
by the word of your lips
I have kept myself
from the ways of the violent.

⁵ My steps have held to your paths;
my feet have not slipped.

⁶ I call on you, O God, for you will answer me;
give ear to me and hear my prayer.

⁷ Show the wonder of your great love,
you who save by your right hand
those who take refuge in you from their foes.

⁸ Keep me as the apple of your eye;
hide me in the shadow of your wings

⁹ from the wicked who assail me,
from my mortal enemies who surround me.

¹⁰ They close up their callous hearts,
and their mouths speak with arrogance.

¹¹ They have tracked me down, they now surround me,
with eyes alert, to throw me to the ground.

¹² They are like a lion hungry for prey,
like a great lion crouching in cover.

¹³ Rise up, O LORD, confront them, bring them down;
rescue me from the wicked by your sword.

¹⁴ O LORD, by your hand save me from such men,
from men of this world whose reward is in this life.
You still the hunger of those you cherish;
their sons have plenty,
and they store up wealth for their children.

¹⁵ And I—in righteousness I will see your face;
when I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness.

We don’t have to fight for ourselves all the time.

Take the matter of sin and salvation. We don’t have to take it on ourselves to pay the penalty for our sins. Because Jesus already paid it. We no longer have to atone for our sins.

Long before (and still now), the Catholic faith held the concept of purgatory. Purgatory was an in-between place for Christians who had sinned. The length of time one spend there was based on how much one had sinned. The more sins, the longer time was spent just sitting there. At the same time, the church leaders took advantage of this concept to earn a little money. They installed the idea that one had to pay penance for one’s sins. This would reduce the time spent in purgatory.

In essence, one had to fight for oneself, to buy off God for a little time. One had to pay for one’s own sins with a little money and a scrap of a paper. In short, the people thought that they would actually get to heaven faster with minimal time spent in purgatory.

Martin Luther denounced this. He knew that the common people did not know how to read, or could not get access to a Bible if they could read. They had no way of telling whether the church leaders were right — or wrong. They trusted the church leaders to lead them to the right path, which the church leaders had failed to do. It was easy to have the common people buy into this concept.

Martin Luther then told them that it was by grace that they were saved, not through paying penance or good deeds.

In a way, they were fighting for their own salvation, even though Jesus had already paid it all.

I feel that we still do that nowadays. When we put ourselves through guilt trips for our wrongdoing. Or when we do things out of a fear that we’re not going to heaven and we’re simply not good enough. A very good friend of mine puts herself through a guilt trip every time she does the least improper thing. Though I understand that it’s also partly because of her heritage (a family that upheld proper behavior), I have the feeling that she didn’t want to forget that she had done something wrong. She wanted to remember the wrong things she had done so that she wouldn’t do them again. If she did them again, then she was pretty harsh on herself.

Some people also do this because they believe that they haven’t atoned enough for the sin. Putting themselves through this mental beat down makes them feel that they’ve atoned a little more and are a little more worthy of God’s grace.

I also believe that it really is not necessary to beat yourself down like that. There’s no need to dredge up the memories of the wrongdoing and shuffle through the whole list like a deck of cards. The penalty has already been paid. You don’t need to punish yourself. You don’t even have to fight to be worthy.

But maybe all this is ingrained into our culture. The idea that we have to fight for everything we own and are entitled to. Rights. Payments. Jobs. The pressure to be on top of things. When we’re little, we fight for candy, toys, and the right to sit in the swingset. When we become elementary school kids, we fight about what’s “fair” and what’s “not fair.” Then when we become teenagers, we fight to control the emotions swirling inside of us. We struggle to control our raging hormones and the changes in our bodies. It’s like holding back the tide. We also start a way for independence. We don’t want to have to depend on our parents more than we have to, and then some.

And then when we become adults, we fight for our jobs. We fight for our husbands, our wives, our children, and our parents. We fight for the paycheck that comes in regularly. We fight for our marriages, and try to keep the passion alive. We fight to keep our lives and checkbooks balance. We juggle so many things.

Every single day, we fight so hard for everything.

Yet it is tiring. After a while, it starts to feel like it’s too much for us to handle. We get exhausted. Burnt out.

Rise up, O LORD, confront them, bring them down; rescue me from the wicked by your sword. O LORD, by your hand save me from such men, from men of this world whose reward is in this life. You still the hunger of those you cherish; their sons have plenty, and they store up wealth for their children.

We have to let God go before us and help us fight our battles. Our pride can so easily get in the way, saying, “I can handle it” when we really can’t.

But because of Him, we don’t have to live life alone.

Why do we continue to act as if we’re all alone?