Let Not My Soul Be Devoured

When the Soul Stands Exposed Before God

“It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

Hebrews 10:31

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“It was not an enemy that insulted me; that I could have borne… But it was you, my companion, my friend.”

Psalm 55

Psalm 35 does not speak in abstractions. It bleeds. It trembles with the bewilderment of a heart that loved and was answered with accusation. It gives voice to the humiliation of being misread, misrepresented, quietly judged, and publicly whispered about. It is the prayer of one who discovers that betrayal rarely comes from strangers. It comes from those who once stood close enough to wound deeply.

There is a particular anguish when calumny takes root. Lies told calmly. Motives assigned. Narratives crafted. Others nourished by the story as if it were bread. And you stand silent, knowing that to defend yourself would only deepen the mud. The psalmist knows this terrain. “They repay me evil for good.” He does not pretend strength. He cries out from the dust.

Yet what is most terrible is not the malice. It is the turning away. The silence of those who know you and choose distance. The absence of those for whom you once fasted and prayed. Those whose grief you carried. Those whose marriages you counseled through the night. Those whose illness you anointed with trembling hands. In the hour of your own desolation, they vanish. No words. No defense. No presence.

The soul can curdle here. It can rehearse the injuries. It can cling to the wound as proof of righteousness. It can build a small, hidden altar to self-justification and call it discernment.

But something else has happened in these four years. Something quieter and more severe.

Humiliation has stripped away the need to be understood. Loss has dismantled the illusion of indispensability. The slow erosion of reputation has revealed how fragile it always was. What has been gained cannot be paraded because it was born in secret. A deeper prayer. A cleaner cry. A heart less certain of itself and more dependent upon mercy.

Joy has arisen, not because the wounds were small, but because they were not final. God did not waste them. In the place where accusation burned, He hollowed out space. In the place where companionship collapsed, He drew nearer without spectacle. In the place where your name was bruised, He whispered His own.

The psalmist does not ask merely for vindication. He asks that his soul not be devoured. That bitterness not have the last word. That he not become what he has suffered.

This is the real battle.

To pray for those who tore at you without condescension. To hold them in intercession without the secret desire that they finally see and repent before you. To love without needing acknowledgment. To bless without rewriting history. To entrust your name entirely to God.

Christ was betrayed with a kiss. Denied by a friend who swore fidelity. Abandoned in His most human hour. He did not cling to the wound. He transfigured it. “Father, forgive them.” Not as a strategy. Not as a performance. But as the natural language of divine love.

Let my love become like that.

Not naïve. Not forgetful. But purified of vengeance. Let me embrace those who turned away, not as one standing above them, but as one who has also failed love in quieter ways. For have I not denied Him in subtler forms? Have I not protected myself at the expense of truth? Have I not turned away from another’s pain when it cost too much?

Humiliation has leveled the ground.

What remains is mercy.

Do not let me cling to the wounds. Do not let them define the story. Let them be openings through which Your peace entered. Let the joy that has quietly arisen out of affliction remain untainted by resentment. Let my heart be wide enough to carry all who have misunderstood me, all who have left, all who have spoken carelessly.

Let me stand before You undefended.

If my name is forgotten, let it be written in Your heart. If my voice is diminished, let my prayer deepen. If companionship is withdrawn, let communion be intensified.

Psalm 35 ends not in despair but in praise. The one surrounded by accusation dares to proclaim thanksgiving in the great assembly. Not because circumstances have changed, but because God has.

You have been my defender without spectacle. My healer without applause. My companion in silence.

Let my soul not be devoured.

Let it be enlarged.