Self-perception

Norah Summers July 21, 2025 3 3

Playlists

Add to Favourites

Save for later

Listen to this daily worship

Psalm 52 (NIVUK)

1 Why do you boast of evil, you mighty hero?
    Why do you boast all day long,
    you who are a disgrace in the eyes of God?
2 You who practise deceit,
    your tongue plots destruction;
    it is like a sharpened razor.
3 You love evil rather than good,
    falsehood rather than speaking the truth.
4 You love every harmful word,
    you deceitful tongue!

5 Surely God will bring you down to everlasting ruin:
    he will snatch you up and pluck you from your tent;
    he will uproot you from the land of the living.
6 The righteous will see and fear;
    they will laugh at you, saying,
7 ‘Here now is the man
    who did not make God his stronghold
but trusted in his great wealth
    and grew strong by destroying others!’

8 But I am like an olive tree
    flourishing in the house of God;
I trust in God’s unfailing love
    for ever and ever.
9 For what you have done I will always praise you
    in the presence of your faithful people.
And I will hope in your name,
    for your name is good.

Well, this reads a bit smug.

It calls to mind Jesus’s story of the two men in the temple, the boastful man telling God how pious and worthy he is, while the other simply acknowledges his failings and asks for mercy.

Only in this psalm the opprobrium is first heaped on the other, while the writer is enjoying his own favour with God.

Our successes and failures are not always the result of virtue or lack thereof – but our attitude to them depends on our self-perception.

I was good at languages at school and won some prizes. But any pride in that accomplishment was tempered by my utter uselessness at any kind of sport or PE, where I was regularly humiliated. In my defence, a then undiagnosed sight problem certainly affected my ability – or rather complete inability – to catch or hit a ball, and I was really just plain stecky anyway. So games and sports have never given me personally any enjoyment, but I have many other things to enjoy and thank God for.

Not virtues on my part, but gifts of God which I gratefully accept and which bring joy to my life.

Prayer:

Loving God, may I enjoy my little successes, without judging other people’s failures. Let me keep a sense of proportion and give you the glory.

Read also Luke 18: 9-14.