Angry Psalms

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King David was called a man closest to God's heart. Many of David's prayers - the Psalms are confusing to me. Why is David spewing vengeance and wishing bad things on his enemies? That seems like an anti-thesis of what Christ exemplified, to love one's enemies. To do good to the ones that hurt you.

Yet, the Psalms has verses like these -

Psalms 58:3-8
Even from birth the wicked go astray;
    from the womb they are wayward, spreading lies.
Their venom is like the venom of a snake,
    like that of a cobra that has stopped its ears,
that will not heed the tune of the charmer,
    however skillful the enchanter may be.
Break the teeth in their mouths, O God;
    Lord, tear out the fangs of those lions!
Let them vanish like water that flows away;
    when they draw the bow, let their arrows fall short.
May they be like a slug that melts away as it moves along,
    like a stillborn child that never sees the sun.

Psalms 55:15
Let death take my enemies by surprise;
    let them go down alive to the realm of the dead,
    for evil finds lodging among them.

I wondered why he would pray like that. And, why would God listen to these kind of prayers? 

It just dawned on me that David was venting to God. He didn't wait to get his heart in a perfect state and pray the perfect prayer, like we sometimes do. He didn't pretend that he didn't have anger in his heart, because he did. And, he knew that God knew that about him. 

So, he took his anger, his frustration, his desire for justice, vengeance at God's feet. In doing so, he found hope and peace because no one knows a human being better than God does. He knows what is hidden in the deep recesses of our heart. 

It turns out that we are all angry about something. We suppress it, and pretend we are not. Or, we go about expressing it in wrong ways, and hurting people in the process.
Like a crock pot, the anger simmers and burns only to explode one day. 

Jesus, I pray that I would be honest about the condition of my heart,
That, I would not spend my life hiding from you,
And, pretending to be something that I'm not.
I pray that I would be like David in my confidence and authenticity,
And bring my issues to you,
Only you know me, Jesus,
And, only you can heal.

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