"To the choirmaster. Of David.
1 In the Lord I take refuge;
how can you say to my soul,
“Flee like a bird to your mountain,
2 for behold, the wicked bend the bow;
they have fitted their arrow to the string
to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart;
3 if the foundations are destroyed,
what can the righteous do?”
4 The Lord is in his holy temple;
the Lord's throne is in heaven;
his eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man.
5 The Lord tests the righteous,
but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.
6 Let him rain coals on the wicked;
fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup.
7 For the Lord is righteous;
he loves righteous deeds;
the upright shall behold his face."
Psalm 11
It need not be doubted that the advice given by these counsellors was absolutely sincere. They felt what they were saying, felt the urgency and extremity of the situation and spoke out of a great sense of burden. They loved David. But - and this is the important point - their love was a human love, and no more. 'Is that not enough?', someone will ask. No, it is not enough. Those who love us best on a merely human level may of- ten be our greatest enemies and biggest hindrances in the spiritual life. Their desire is to shield us, protect us, shelter us from the unpleasantness and hazard that standing firm in faith will undoubtedly cause us. Dictated by a warm, sincere concern and love it may be, but if only human, dangerous and even deadly to spiritual life. Alexander Maclaren finely comments: 'Better infinitely to toil on, even when toil seems vain, than cowardly to keep a whole skin at the cost of a wounded conscience, or despairingly to fling up work, because the ground is hard and the growth of the seed imperceptible'. Prudent advice, when the prudence is not inspired by faith but by sense, is never God's way. That is enough to think about, is it not, for one day.