The Wicked Stand Strong

Meaning in Psalm 74

by Alfred D. Byrd

SOMETIMES, we think, "Our God has left us."
Nothing goes right, the wicked stand strong,
And we hear in the mouths of the rich and pretty
Slanders against the Name of the One.
We looked for prophets to give us the light,
But men with scriptures have led us astray
With tales of an end that failed to come true.
The laughter of skeptics is harsh in our ears.
In our fears, the reign of darkness will grow
Till it fills the earth and leaves us no room.
In times of darkness, our path grows dim.
It's easy for us to feel abandoned—
Nothing but sheep in a ring of wolves.

We need to recall the past of our faith.
Misfortunes have come to those before us.
Hammered by hardships, they staggered and fell,
Yet they lived to pass on the word of the truth:
It came through a fire to be learned by us.
Remember the Temple, Solomon's glory!
Haters of God, like loggers with axes,
Hacked it to pieces, plundered its gold,
And set it aflame. It burned to the ground.
The ones who trusted in wood lost hope;
The ones who trusted the Word found sight.
A building was lost, but the Word went on
To change the lives of all who could hear
The voice of the truth — the summons of God.

Our God is hardly an idol of wood,
Or a ghost that haunts us in dreams by night,
But turns to mist when we glimpse the dawn.
Our God has made the sun and the moon
And set them amid a heaven of stars
Too many for sages to count and name them.
Slanders can't reach as high as the Throne.
Our God has shaped the bed of oceans,
Emptied rivers, and opened fresh springs.
The darkness of night and the depths of the sea
Can hold no terrors for God, their King;
They obey the will of the One on the Throne.
Against the One, the Maker of all,
The laughter of skeptics is croaking of frogs
That fail to perceive the bear in their swamp.

When we think of the One Who made the world
And the faith that outlived the fires of war,
We should pray for God to uphold the Word
And show the skeptics, the selfish, the vain,
And the ones who wander for lack of the light
How great is our God — how small are we.
May our God remember suffering children,
Comfort the grieving, give strength to the weak,
And show a people that seeks in darkness
Glimmers of light to lead it to hope—
The path to the Throne, where we'll look at our King
And praise the Source of life and of love.

If this poem spoke to you, you may enjoy my Biblical epic poems

A Song of the One, the age-old account of Creatlon, Fall, Redemption, and Glory retold in verse for a new millennium, and

The Stars Bow Down: An Epic of Joseph, the timeless tale of a favorite son whose brothers sold him into slavery, but whom God raised from a prison to save the known world from famine.