By Jack Legg
Editors Note: This modern psalm has been written to reflect the lives of the urban poor. It has been prepared as if it were appearing in a study Bible, complete with scholarly commentary. The reader will notice that footnotes have been added at some points to further clarify the meaning of the Psalmist. Article first appeared in Burnside Writer’s Collective.
Come, magnify the Lord with me,
And Let us exalt His Name together.
I will bless the Lord every day, and His praise will always be in my mouth.
For He alone delivers. He alone hears my cry. He alone understands.
Preserve me, O God, because my enemies are everywhere.
They come into my neighborhood to crush me.
I borrow enough to pay the bills, but give up my own soul.
My debtors gang up to keep me down. Fast cash or money now becomes slow progress and exaggerated debt.
The tax collectors deceive and enslave me.
In an endless cycle, I cry out from the darkness,
I cannot escape on my own!
My children cry out, they hunger and thirst.
I look to you Lord, when their birthday is near, to provide just one Barbie, or Spiderman, or ball, or shirt.
My face is hidden from them. They sleep when I return from work; my bleary eyes watch over them as they slumber in blissful ignorance of the fragility of their world.
Deliver me from temptation, O Lord, for many dishonest and degrading means could put food into their mouths.
I slave all the day, serving more than one master , sacrificing my health and well-being for my family. I never see the sun, yet I do not make ends meet.
I am cursed and despised, accosted and lectured. I am called lazy and irresponsible.
How long, O God, will I suffer at the hands of the self-righteous?
Deliver me from false prophets who sneak into my camp at night.
They pretend to be wise and holy, but shame Your Name, O Lord.
They spread lies and manipulate your Word to make a god in their image.
Lost, all is lost! Now no man will employ me.
I am rejected and despised.
Worry and dread encroach upon me like I have never known.
I look to the Lord, who gives and takes away.
How long, O Lord?
Though I walk through alleys of shadowy death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.
My Protector and my Shield. After dark You walk me home.
Where can I go and not find You?
When I rest in a warm apartment, you are there.
When I make my bed in the gutter, you are there.
When I choke on my tears and turn from my friends, then sell my body for a cheeseburger, even then Your hand can reach me.
Whenever I say, Im cold and its dark. Tomorrow I die, You light dazzling street lamps and provide me a coat. Even in the darkness, you see me clearly.
Provider and Rock of my salvation,
I go to a homeless program conducted by Your people. Praise Your Holy Name!
There you open my eyes to teach me what it means to be in need.
When I, as a grown adult, am made to ask permission to cross the street with my daughter to buy a soda, I understand what poverty is all about.
When I drape my body across an uncomfortable couch in the midst of the sweltering heat of a church basement, I know what it means to be poor.
As the baby screams through the night, suffering from a bad diaper rash that no one has medication for, I weep alongside him for want.
I am cursed by my fellow resident, a woman in bitter withdrawal, only seven days clean from her addiction to heroin. Then I understand anew what it means to be poor and broken.
They enter in and preach at me, giving me the answers I am supposed to know.
Pray harder, they say, Dress nice, go to church.
They preach a happy, healthy, wealthy gospel and I laugh them to derision.
But, even then, You are there.
O God, my Provider, you bring me out of despair! No longer a wandering refugee, You make for me a house.
Section 8, in a better neighborhood, I rejoice! In the midst of my troubles, You make for me a shelter.
When the doorknob falls off in my hand, You make the way open before me.
When the refrigerator sputters and dies, spoiling my final meal, You make provisions for me to eat.
In those rooms where electricity fails, You light up the room by Your presence.
I huddle near the stove in the middle of long winter, and You warm my bones.
I cannot even flush my toilet without filling the tank by hand, but You comfort me.
Even the mice and cockroaches and ants and hornets fall prostrate before you in humble worship.
I cant always see You, but all of creation bows before You.
O Come, magnify the Lord with me,
And Let us exalt His Name together.
I will bless the Lord every day, and His praise will always be in my mouth.
For He alone delivers. He alone hears my cry. He alone understands.
If you liked this article, check out: Giving and Taking: God Loves the Poor
Jack is the Co-Director of an inner-city organization that reaches out to troubled youth. He is also one of the founding members of a Christian intentional living community in Springfield, OH.