Psalm 123: 1 To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens! 2 As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, until he has mercy upon us. 3 Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us, for we have had more than enough of contempt. 4 Our soul has had more than its fill of the scorn of those who are at ease, of the contempt of the proud.
The verses above represent the entire psalm. Not much to it, right? But the message is familiar. The psalmist feels like the world is beating up on him and his community. They who follow God struggle while the unbelievers prosper. That’s not how things are supposed to work. What has my attention this morning is the end of v.2 “our eyes look to the Lord our God, until he has mercy upon us”. They are waiting on the Lord to bring relief, to set things right.
There is someone dear to me who has gotten caught up in an internet scam with someone posing as a paramour and asking for money. My dear one is not stupid by any means. To the contrary, this person is very intelligent – but also lonely and somewhat isolated. Over the course of a year the fraudster has managed to secure hundreds of thousands of dollars from this person who, at an advanced age, cannot afford to part with. But it’s obvious the fraudster is providing something my dear one needs. Companionship – even if it’s only via text or email. When confronted with evidence of the scam (even by law enforcement people), my dear one simply refuses to believe it. And while there may not be any more financial exchanges, the fraudster continues to have an emotional hold.
When will it end? What will it take?
And so while my dear one continues to wait for this fraudster to finally appear in-person and prove us all wrong, which has been promised to my dear one many times, but always cancelled, I wait upon the Lord to take the blinders from my dear one and reveal the truth – because at this point it appears logic and reason or personal appeal is not enough to break the spell. This is a mountain the Lord will have to move.
What are you waiting for from the Lord? Father, give us grace to wait, yet to never lose hope. Amen.
Fuel for the journey 
There are many evils. I hope the Lord can lift the blinders of your friend, but our arrogance can prevent us from admitting we made a mistake.
I remember hearing about this person about 6 months ago. Wow, this person goes to the TOP of my prayer list. This is what STUCK IN PLACE IS.
Can we blame it on the Devil? I want to personify the cause. I am going to picture an evil witch/devil hugging Special Person and Powerful God/Jesus, who is bigger, ripping the evil one off that person and then Jesus touches Evil Witch and “it” shrivels..
Marcie S.