It Was Not an Enemy, and That Is the Whole Difficulty

He sits four rows in front, on the left, and he has for eleven years.

They shake hands. It is not awkward and nobody watching would detect anything, because both of them are perfectly good at this and have had over a decade to get the hang of it. They have been at the same funerals. Their wives are friendly.

And the thing that happened is entirely real, and it happened between two people who were close at the time, which is the reason it did the damage it did.

That is the specific condition and it is worth naming precisely: it would have been survivable from a stranger, easier from somebody disliked, and almost nothing from an enemy. It landed the way it landed because of who it came from, and everybody in that situation knows this and nobody says it, because saying it sounds like an accusation about closeness rather than about the act.

David writes three verses about exactly this and he spends them on the identity of the person rather than on what was done.

He does the comparison out loud

Here is the passage, and it is constructed as a comparison a person makes privately and never says.

For it was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it: neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me; then I would have hid myself from him: But it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance. (Psalm 55:12-13, King James Version)

Then I could have borne it. He says what would have made it bearable, which is the sentence nobody allows themselves.

And the two options he lists are exactly the two that would have been available. From an enemy: endurance. From somebody who hated him: avoidance. Both are workable strategies, and neither is available here, and he says why in verse 13.

A man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance. Three descriptions, escalating in intimacy, and none of them is about the offense.

You are able to say out loud what would have made it bearable. Psalm 55:12 does exactly that in Scripture, and it is the Spirit of truth, John 16:13, who guides into an accurate account rather than into a manageable one.

And then the detail that makes it a church problem

Verse 14 is the one that puts this in this category rather than in a general one.

We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company. (Psalm 55:14)

Walked unto the house of God in company.

They went together. This is not a friendship that happened to include religion; the shared thing was the walk to the building, which means every time he goes now, he goes past the memory of the two of them going.

That is the part almost nobody addresses. The wound and the place of worship are attached, and the ordinary remedy people offer, which is to go to church and be helped, is complicated by the fact that the building is where the association lives.

And Scripture puts that detail in rather than leaving it out, which tells you it is not an unspiritual complication. It is in the psalm.

You are able to have this attached to the building and have Scripture say so. Psalm 55:14 names the walk to the house of God as part of what was lost, and it is by the Spirit, Romans 8:26, who helps our infirmities in the exact place a person cannot pray easily.

What the psalm does not do

It is worth noticing what David does not do with this, because it would have been available to him.

He does not leave. The psalm is full of wishing he could, in the most explicit terms available.

And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest. (Psalm 55:6)

Oh that I had wings. That is honest and it is in the book and nobody edited it out. The wish to be somewhere else is not treated as a failure of faith; it is recorded as what a person in this situation actually wants.

And he does not go. The psalm ends with him still there, and the thing unresolved, and a decision about where to put the weight rather than about where to put himself.

I want to be careful, because nothing in this passage is an instruction to anybody about whether to stay anywhere. There are situations where a person should not be in reach of somebody, and Scripture never requires proximity, and this article does not either.

You are able to want to be elsewhere and have that in Scripture rather than against you. Psalm 55:6 records the wish for wings without correcting it, and it is by the Spirit, Romans 8:26, that groanings which cannot be uttered are made into intercession.

The instruction is about where the weight goes

And then the verse the psalm is remembered for, and it is a transfer.

Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. (Psalm 55:22)

Cast. It is a throwing word, and it is deliberate. Not: lay it down gently. Not: stop feeling it. Throw it, which implies both weight and distance and a decision that happens in a moment rather than over a period.

He shall sustain thee. The verb is about holding somebody up under a load, and notice what it is not: it is not a promise that the load is removed. The situation in that psalm never resolves. What is promised is that the person is held up in it.

Peter picks up the same verse and adds a reason.

Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. (1 Peter 5:7)

For he careth for you. Which is the reason it is allowed, and it is not that God is strong enough. It is that He is interested.

You are able to throw it rather than carry it politely. Psalm 55:22 uses a casting verb and promises sustaining rather than removal, and it is by the Spirit, Ephesians 3:16, that a person is strengthened with might in the inner man.

What is available on a Sunday

Practically, and this is the part that has to work in an actual hallway.

Nothing here requires a conversation with the man four rows in front. It does not require the shaking of hands to feel different than it does. It does not require anybody to stop noticing where he sits.

What is available is one sentence, said out loud, elsewhere, that is both kind and true about him. Not to him. Not about the thing.

The reason it works is that it is the one part of the situation that belongs entirely to the person doing it, and everything else in that building is shared property. He cannot decide what the other man thinks or says or whether anything is ever raised. He can decide, entirely alone, in a car, what he says about him when nobody is listening.

If what happened is still happening, or if being in that building has become something you dread rather than something that is difficult, say it out loud to a doctor, a counselor, a social worker, or a pastor you trust. In the United States the 988 crisis line is answered by a real person at any hour.

You are able to do the one part of this that belongs entirely to you. Psalm 55:22 puts the casting in the hands of the person carrying it, and it is by the Spirit, Romans 5:5, that the love which makes a kind sentence possible is shed abroad rather than manufactured.