Am I allowed to feel this way?

Psalm 137: Am I allowed to feel this way?

Don’t answer this out loud, but, what is the maddest you have ever been at someone? How much have you absolutely hated someones guts and? Have you ever gone so far as to wish that someone would just die? Have you ever prayed that something bad would happen to someone. Again, I don’t need you to answer that out loud. Keep that answer to yourself.

I’ll tell you one time it happened to me. And remember, this is one I’m willing to tell you about. There have been other times I’ve dealt with similar feelings, but this is one I’m willing to talk about right now.

I was in the 9th grade. We were preparing for the Christmas Parade. The town did a HUGE Christmas parade. It was an all day thing. It was several miles. and the whole thing was televised. That’s the key here. Being in the Christmas parade meant being on TV.

Now, everyone in jrotc was “in” the parade, but there were 250 of us just from my school. So 250 people marching in unison, all in the same uniform, past the camera in 4 flights of 6X8. Nobody would see you if you were just in the big group like that…so there were a couple dozen spots for people who could do special things to lead the way and show off and be seen better than everyone else.

and most of those spots went to upper classmen just because the guys in charge gave all the good spots to their friends. but there were a few spots that you could audition for. and for the very last spot on the exhibition team, spinning rifles in front of the camera, it came down to 2 people. Me, and my friend Davey Allen. And we were really good friends. super close. never had any problems until this moment.

For the audition, Davey and I were told by the commander to play a game of horse. he’d do a trick, I’d copy it and then do another trick, he’d copy it and do another. Y’all know the game horse, right? If you can’t match what the other person did, or you mess up on your own thing, you get a letter. If you spell horse, you lose.

We were going at this for a solid 45 min. We both have an “S” I start spinning this 15lb M1 Garand in 1 hand, bleeding all over it from a previous trick I failed, how I got my “O”. Surely this is one thing Davey cannot do. But he does it, and then, he starts spinning with 2 hands, drops to his knees, lays all the way down, flat on his back, and then gets back up while spinning this thing. I knew I was done, but I tried it, made it halfway down before the side of the stock busts me in my head.

SO now, I’m bleeding, from both my hand and my head. Everyone around us is cheering, for the guy that just beat me, and I just lost a 45 min competition. I’ve got a massive headache, the cheering crowds are only making things worse. and I’m not gonna get to be on TV.

When I tell you I prayed that in that moment I wanted to take that rifle across his head, I mean it. I absolutely hated him. I couldn’t stand the sight of the guy. I actively prayed that he would get hit by a bus, and then felt bad for praying that and dialed it back to praying that he would break both of his arms before the parade.

It is perfectly human to be that mad at someone and hope that something bad happens to them.

But just because something is normal, does that make it ok?

Tonight we’re looking at Psalm 137. Psalm 137 is classified as an imprecatory Psalm.

An imprecation is a spoken curse on someone or something.

Not like curse words. and not like Harry Potter curses. Think of it like the opposite of a toast to someone. Something like, “May your hair fall out and your girlfriend leave you.” That is an imprecation. and there are enough of them in scripture, and particularly in the Psalms that this is considered its own category.