Faithful Prayer and Psalm 26

Psalm 26 reads as follows in the New Oxford Annotated version:

Vindicate me of Lord; for I have walked in integrity, I have trusted the Lord without wavering.

Prove me, O Lord, and try me, test my heart and my mind.

For your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in faithfulness to you."

I do not sit with the worthless, nor do I consort with hypocrites,

I hate the company of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked.

I wash my hands in innocence, and go around your altar, O Lord, singing aloud a song of thanksgiving, and telling all your wondrous deeds, O Lord, I love the house in which you dwell, and the place where your glory abides, Do not sweep me away with sinners, nor my life with the bloodthirsty, those in whose hands are evil devices, and whose right hands are full of bribes.

But as for me, I walk in my integrity, redeem me, and be gracious to me,

My foot stands on level ground, in the great congregation I will praise the Lord.

This psalm correlates with verses in James chapter 1 where it says in verses 5 thru 8, “If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you. But ask in faith, never doubting, for one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind, for the doubter, being double minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord."

Double minded here meaning the individual is trying to postulate two counter opposing beliefs or they are trying to hold two incompatible views. It is like saying the earth is flat and the earth is round, where it can’t be both. The onus is on the particular individual who lacks wisdom to ask for it themselves as God gives to all. So the excuse that I didn’t ask because God only gives to some isn’t there. And then the idea that God will open his hand a little slower for you isn’t there as an excuse either, because it says he gives ungrudgingly.

The overall theme of the psalm is not to waver in the trust of the Lord.

The psalm then goes into what is involved in not wavering from the Lord’s presence and how it might be possible to waver and some of the ways that this can happen. The tone of the psalm does going into realities that would only potentially increase the possibility of somebody wavering in prayer, and it recognizes some of the difficulties out there that become distractions from faithful prayer. Despite the existence of various kinds of tumult, the there is a call to faithful prayer,  a call that remains and should never be compromised by anything,

Verse 2 says, “Prove me and test my heart and mind." From this, we can waver both in our minds and in our hearts, or intentions. Is our mind steady on the Lord or is it going elsewhere? Here the psalmist asks the Lord to test him, both heart and mind. In the verse from James, it talks about the double mind, and that is something to watch for in the negative. Although he believes from these verses that the testing of his mind and heart would be found on the side of not wavering, someone might also asks for this testing in prayer, to ask the Lord to show him or her how they are wavering, and to help them overcome this to a place where they have decreased this wavering and come back to trust.

The psalmist then goes on to describe his doings. He says in verse 3 that he has been faithful and kept the steady love of the Lord before his sight. This indicates that the eyes can rove into areas that are outside the steady love of the Lord for the individual. That the love is steady indicates that it is like a light, that can be found and doesn’t go away, but out of the freedom of will, one can roam away from this steady love. He is describing his walk with the Lord as one of faithfulness, where he has kept to it and possibly kept to his word on matters of the word of promises.

Verses 4 and 5 say he does not sit with the worthless; no does he consort with hypocrites.  Meaning he doesn’t involve himself in the plans of the hypocrites. The hypocrites do not have the steadfast love of the Lord before their eyes even if they say they do. Hypocrites is an interesting word, as sometimes the wrong side of the fence does involve a window dressing or pretense to where it still looks good and inviting especially on the surfaces. For example, someone might profess to be shocked at the depravity of the situation, yet what are they doing there in the first place? They really want to imbibe, but they point to the worse parts and by doing that, their own bad behavior is less by comparison and it’s a decoy tactic. The really bad guy is over there as they point in another direction.

But all in all, wavering is wavering.

Verse 7 says, he washes his hands in innocence, meaning, it was close enough to where he could have been involved, but wasn’t. He then goes around the altar, singing aloud and telling of the Lord's wondrous deeds, of which he might have been the direct beneficiary or at least the observer of.

There is the matter of what he has done and then the matter of what he will do. He says he hasn’t wavered, but he is still concerned about future outcomes and what is going to happen as trouble seems to be near enough. In verses 8 thru 10, he says he loves the house of the Lord, the place where his glory abides. He wants to be able to stay with this, and in his mind it is no guarantee nor is he taking this for granted and earlier he does ask for a testing of his mind and the intentions of his heart. He is still fearful of being swept away in the devices of the evil doers. Their ways may have been and may still be a temptation for him and he needs to guard both his mind and his heart. He asks that he be not swept away with sinners. He must have seen this happen to others and it is something he fears. Others have been swept away and feeling anything is possible, he has a fear of this. It may have been accentuated in that some of those that were swept away were rather close to him, actual close friends or associates. This could also be the case where manifestations of evil can come into the territory of innocents. If there is large scale evil out there, it can come upon innocent bystanders.

In verse 11 it says, “but as for me, I walk in my integrity, redeem me and be gracious to me."

Here he is almost saying, I can really only speak for myself. But as for me, is just saying he will do this and maybe he is the only one, and he is asking for the redemption and grace to be directed to him personally. Redeem here meaning get him thru this trouble when it comes and to single him out for mercy when maybe a grand sweep comes.

The psalmist is now saying what he will do. Earlier he said he had been faithful, now he is saying he will walk in integrity in the future. Maybe the pause in this psalm or the split in it, between the past and what he will do now involves a direct sweep where a lot of those close by had been swept away in the present, and now he is one of the sole survivors of this.

In verse 12, he says, his foot stands on a level ground; in the great congregation I will bless the Lord.

It is paramount that he remains in the great congregation and this can be human and celestial as the great congregation would include angels as well as other people. Faithful prayer keeps you in the company of angels as well as the visible church.

Even someone praying alone in solitary locaton can be joined by a congreation of angels.

Again, the concern goes to his own foot, others nearby may have fallen and may have been swept away. Imagine being in the water, and in treacherous waves swimming maybe for the fun of it. It can be a relief to regain your footing on something as the rather mighty waves approach and maybe others who are nearby haven’t regained their footing and have been swept out to sea in the treacherous surf that’s is great for surfing but comes with high risks.

Maybe he had lost his footing momentarily in some fashion and is relieved to get it back. He might have been rocked in the sweeping away of the sinners. It might have been like an earthquake that rumbled through the land, and now he has regained his foot on level ground, although most did not and might have been caught in ensuing floods and debris from the earthquake. This is not to say that such an event would be automatically signify God’s judgment, but in this case, whatever happened was read as such by the psalmist here. And there are any number of ways in which sinners can be swept away, but whatever did happen here was quite observable to the psalmist and its close proximity was rather frightful to him. All things that can take the focus away from faithful prayer and the good footing of faithful prayer.

The great congregation could be a large gathering of the faithful in some physical setting. But also someone could be in the great congregation and be quite alone to human companionship. The great congregation could be angels accompanying him on his journey or other heavenly hosts who are nearby. So the psalmist could have been in the desert or some other solitary setting and fully alone yet amidst the great congregation of angels and heavenly hosts. The presence of the congregation means as well, that he has also retained his personal position to be able to pray with power both for himself and for others who remain in the distance.