Psalm 3:7
right where we want to be
I will not fear thousands of the people, surrounding me: arise, O Lord; save me, O my God. (Psalm 3:7 DR)
As troubling as it can be to be assaulted head-on by temptation, perhaps more dangerous is when temptation surrounds and permeates the entire society in which one exists. Given the reality of Original Sin, all societies and civilizations are to some extent liable to serve as the petri dish, as it were, in which the contagion of sin and temptation can breed and multiply. But they can also participate in either restraining vice or enabling it by what they allow, what they value and what they promote, whether on the grassroots level or from the top.
Our current societies in the western world have largely decided to embrace the promotion of vice, and thus temptation to it utterly permeates our society such that we largely do not even notice it anymore. It has become, so to speak, the air we breathe. As an example, most pop music is utterly devoid of any artistic or lyrical value, and often peddles in glorifying sexual vices of all kinds. In one’s own personal life one might (and should) choose not to listen to this, but it is impossible to escape it, as something as seemingly innocuous as going to the grocery store for food ensures that one will be assaulted by obscene or at least suggestive lyrics.
The same is true of the things that we see. It again is not enough to avoid watching anything on TV or movies, all of which are as bad or worse than the music for having a visual component. Going anywhere will entail that one either is bombarded with visuals in the form of billboards, advertisements, etc., which while perhaps not as in-your-face lewd, are designed and marketed within the same milieu and thus towards the same enticements. What we as a society consider “tame” or even “family-friendly” often involves sexual suggestion that is merely not completely overt.
The end result is that we are continually besieged by temptations. This can cause us to despair in ever overcoming and avoiding sin, or—perhaps worse—obtaining a certain numbness by which we become acclimated to it and begin to regard it as normal. This normalization (and often promotion) of temptation and sin in our society belies the rotted foundations underneath the material prosperity and decadence.
The Psalmist looks around himself and himself besieged by numberless hosts of enemies, which might cause anyone to despair or to attempt to compromise with them. But instead of these false choices he instead directs his gaze directly towards the Lord, hoping and confident that he will be preserved from sin. These “thousands of the people” are identical to the enemies he has been decrying throughout this Psalm, and now that they are surrounding him, he has no natural or human recourse nor even sheer strength of will; his only hope is the Lord.
It is ironically because of the lack of options and the necessity of trusting in God for salvation that he is able to be confident, for he understands that this hope is actually well-founded. Often our ideas of what we could do or what human measures we could take carry the illusion of being more solid or “practical,” yet we too often forget how frail, incompetent and feckless we as a race are and how often our plans come to naught or have unintended consequences. It is precisely because we are so beset by temptation and sin that we must place all our hope and confidence in the Lord, for there is—humanly speaking—no other option. It is our part to be faithful in our lives and wait for God’s salvation; working as we can and where we can, but entrusting the end to the Lord. As the Psalmist says elsewhere:
Expect the Lord, do manfully, and let thy heart take courage, and wait thou for the Lord. (Psalm 26:14 DR)
This animation was pretty simple and straightforward. I wanted to give the sense of being surrounded, but I didn’t want to animate a bunch of objects. I found this nice flocking birds preset in Trapcode Particular and set it to be emitted by a sphere. The rest was the robots and a couple keyframes.
Enjoy.
I will not fear thousands of the people, surrounding me: arise, O Lord; save me, O my God.
(Psalm 3:7 DR)
View a higher quality version of this gif here: