He Hears Your Prayer Against the Lie
Glenna Marshall
The book of Psalms in my Bible is heavily inked with dates, circumstances, prayers, questions, and reminders of truth. I walked through some of the darkest years of my life upheld by the tattered, scribbled pages of the Psalms. Much of the turmoil confessed in the margins of my Bible were lived out in ministry. Some folks cringe at the idea of writing in Bibles, and I can understand why. However, I advocate for jotting down the notes, thoughts, convictions, sorrows, dates, and prayers next to the passages that you read when you were hurting. One day you’ll look back at the suffering and trials you walked through, and you’ll see how the Word of God sustained you when nothing else could.
Recently, I flipped through the Psalms and noted how many times I dated a psalm and wrote the words “Read during difficult days of ministry.” Over and over again the phrase is repeated throughout the thin pages of biblical laments and songs. I have found much solace in the plaintive cries of the psalmists as they lament their fears and anxieties to the Lord. Often, there is a cry for justice or a plea for vindication. If you’ve ever been lied about, slandered, or misunderstood, the Psalms offer a biblical way to voice your complaints to the Lord.
Psalm 120 is a brief but powerful prayer for truth and peace to prevail. It is a psalm of ascent—a song the Israelites would have sung on their pilgrimage to Jerusalem for feasts. The psalmist writes:
“In my distress I called to the Lord, and He answered me.
‘Lord, deliver me from lying lips and a deceitful tongue.’
What will He give you, and what will He do to you, you deceitful tongue?
A warriors’ sharp arrows with burning charcoal!
What misery that I have stayed in Meshech, that I have lived among the tents of Kedar!”
It reads a little odd to our contemporary eyes, but the psalmist is bemoaning the lies and slander that have perpetuated false rumors about him and his people. He lists the places Israel has lived here and there—both far from their home in Jerusalem.
But then the psalmist closes with this: “I have lived too long with those who hate peace. I am for peace but when I speak, they are for war.” The margins next to these verses are filled with notes and prayers in my Bible. During some lengthy, difficult days of ministry when we were dealing with the fallout of salacious gossip and completely false rumors, I took my complaints to the Psalms. I remember feeling like I had no safe place in our church at the time—no one I could talk to about how I was feeling. If I tried to defend my husband and his pastoral role against the gossip, I was afraid it would make him look weak. If I counteracted the slander with revenge, I would be sinning against both God and man. So, I was silent. I took my tears to the psalms and my confusion to the pages of my journals. I knew what was true about my husband, his love for our church, his motives in leading the way he did. No one in the church knew him as well as I did. I hated that he had to absorb the lies and accusations while he quietly continued to serve in spite of them.
What could I do? I learned to pray the psalms back to the Lord when I didn’t know what to do or what to pray or say. Psalm 120 was one that I spoke to Him. “I have lived too long with those who hate peace,” I told Him, thinking of the divisive factions within the church who seemed bent on acquiring my husband’s resignation. “I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war,” I cried helplessly to Him. Would the Lord defend us? Would we be able to stand firm in spite of the slander?
As I studied and prayed the Psalms all those years ago, I read Charles Spurgeon’s commentary alongside them. When I wondered if it was even right to pray this particular psalm in our situation, I read this from Spurgeon and wrote it in the margin next to Psalm 120:
“The ear of God is not deaf, nor even heavy. He listens attentively, He catches the first accent of supplication; He makes each of His children confess—“He heard me.” When we are slandered it is a joy that the Lord knows us and cannot be made to doubt our uprightness: He will not hear the lie against us, but He will hear our prayer against the lie.” (Source)
When we are perplexed about those who come against our ministry without merit, we can know that God will not hear the lie against us. Rather, He listens attentively to our prayer against the lie! When your ministry is denigrated, criticized unduly, slandered, or unfairly judged, let your vindication come from the Lord who sees, knows, and understands. If people are lying about you, the Lord will not hear it because He knows what is true. But be certain that He hears your prayers to Him for help. One day, He will right every wrong. We can keep walking forward in faithfulness to the ministry to which He has called and set before us because the One whose opinion matters most sees things most clearly. He is not convinced by lies, gossip, or slander. He knows you. If we stand before God with a pure heart, then we can absorb false rumors or baseless criticisms with forgiveness.
He sees you. He knows you. He loves you. He is with you.
Glenna Marshall is married to her pastor, William, and lives in rural Southeast Missouri where she tries and fails to keep up with her two energetic sons. She is the author of The Promise is His Presence: Why God is Always Enough (P&R) and Everyday Faithfulness: The Beauty of Ordinary Perseverance in a Demanding World (Crossway, June 2020).