e172 God vs Human Intrigue (are you giving your attention to what God is protecting you from…)

This is Faith to Witness 99, motivating us to hear God and share the Shepherd.  

Season 3 Episode 172  God vs Human Intrigue (are you giving your attention to what God is protecting you from…)

Here’s the gist, human. God is on the lookout for plots, schemes, the human intrigue of others plotting against our spiritual growth. I have been asking myself the same questions all week. Why do I want to take a closer look at, get up close and personal with Psalm 31, verse 20? 

Psalm 31:20 

20 In the shelter of your presence you hide them

    from all human intrigues;

What is really going on inside this verse? Why do I feel compelled to bring this to my listeners, in our pursuit of knowing God more deeply?

I do it because when someone or something captures my attention I should stake a claim on my time, my value, my worth in God’s kingdom. I should picture it in my mind’s eye as the ascent to the Mt. Everest in my heart. It’s that important. 

Because attention is one of the few offerings we bring to God.

E172. Listen in. You have homework.

In episode 171 we walked through Psalm 31 to experience the power of gathering up our feelings into one psalm, taking direction from a point in time in David’s life and applying it to our own. To experience the power of God’s presence. We learned our part in it. To ask. To trust. To beckon God’s presence when life’s circumstances are pursing us with the relentless vigilance of the people we knew we couldn’t trust, and the people we thought we trusted. Human nature has a betrayal gene. It clings to everyone, everything that is not-God. 

David names his God. So can we. Refuge, righteousness, rescue, rock, fortress, all to one purpose: for the sake of God’s name, lead me, guide me.  And then, what we all must do, as often as needed, give our spirit to Him, because in this what I am doing is asking God to protect me with his Spirit nature. What I am left with here is to name my God, name my pain, call on my God, and give him glory and my trust. What I am left with is this from David’s heart:

He says, “The Lord preserves those who are true to him,”

This process, reading through David’s praise trails, taking them on as our own is a sure way, a way to bring us back to being true to God, to Jesus, to the Holy Spirit. When? When I am lost in the complexity of fleeing from relationships, circumstances, my own human nature. All of it. That was episode 171.

Psalm 31 cuts right to the middle of human nature where people are actually living. 

Case in point: Psalm 31:20. When I got to this verse, two words stopped me cold. 

“Human intrigues” 

Verse 20 goes like this, as David describes the protection of God for those who take refuge in him:  

20 In the shelter of your presence you hide them

    from all human intrigues;

It’s so cheesy that I was “intrigued,” don’t you think? But I knew I needed to return to this and understand the power of these words, what they mean and how human intrigue leads me one way or another. How human intrigue can come to mean emotional harm to the heart and soul, something that runs deeper than physical harm in the long run.

The Hebrew word for human intrigues is rōḵes. It’s translated as “pride” or “arrogance,” implying hidden plots or schemes rather than simple self-esteem, linked to an Akkadian root for hobbling a camel, suggesting entrapment. This is the practice of tying a camel’s forefeet and looping a rope around its neck to restrain it. Rokes is specific to instances of cunning, prideful opposition to God’s people. 

This verse highlights God protecting us from the treacherous, cunning plots of people, not just their boasting. God is protecting us from human intrigues.

God’s Presence and Protection From Human Intrigues

So in Psalm 31:20 God’s presence is established, translated in the following ways:

The cover of your presence

In the shelter of your presence

In the secret place of your presence

In the protection of your presence

No wonder David tells us in verse 8 of Psalm 31 that God has set us in a spacious place. 

And other translations of “human intrigues” include:

The plots of men

Conspiracies of mankind

Human schemes

Conspire against them

The pride of man

The plots of man

There is extensive plotting in the Bible. God’s Will is a complex, intricately woven story arc of his love, judgement, redemption, reconciliation of a “stiff-necked people. ” Our Master Storyteller has complete control of his story. And your role in it, human.

Plots within God’s chosen nation?

-Cain and Abel

-Jacob and Esau

-Sarah and Hagar

-Haman and Esther

-the split of the 12 tribes

I could go on.

And how about in Jesus’ life? 

-Herod attempted to plot against a newborn baby when the Wise Men were en route to the manger.

-Herod deepened the plot with the killing of new born males, causing Joseph and Mary to flee to Egypt.

-Pharisees and Sadducees used the Septuagint, the Law, to religiously and legally trap Jesus in his words.

-Judas birthed a plot to touch Jesus’ ear and gain 30 pieces of silver. 

-the Roman government used a weighted stone to plot against the possibility of a resurrected Jesus. 

The Power of a Human Plot 

I have been asking myself the same questions all week. 

Why do I want to take a closer look at, get up close and personal with verse Psalm 31, verse 20? What is really going on inside this verse? Why do I feel compelled to bring this to my listeners, in our pursuit of knowing God more deeply?

I do it because when someone or something captures my attention I should stake that claim on my time, my value, my worth in God’s kingdom. I should picture it in my mind’s eye as the ascent to the Mt. Everest in my heart. It’s that important. 

Because attention is one of the few offerings we bring to God.

God tells me with the assuredness of his sovereign spirit that he scouts those around me who are plotting against me. Scheming against what I believe. Scheming against his purpose for me.

The schemes are luxurious. 

The schemes beckon my self-interest.

A 9 ft giant, a legion of warriors and a jealous king were intrigued by David.

But it is the world that chases me. 

The schemes indulge my human nature for ways to step outside of God. 

To the side of him. Behind him. Beneath him. 

But never beyond him. Because that is not possible. 

Proverbs 6:18 describes: 

18         a heart that devises wicked schemes,

        feet that are quick to rush into evil,

Surely I am not wicked beyond my salvation. In Christ, I am not. But I have so many earthly minutes to live in the consequence of my moment-by-moment choices. While God protects me from external scheming, I can’t help but think about how it would feel to be a hobbled camel. 

Need we be reminded that when we bind the forefeet of a camel, when we hobble a camel and tether his neck, he cannot move? Is the goal not entrapment of the camel?

That’s us. When our human intrigue is motivated by a pride that is fueled by obsession. I have racked my brain, my heart, my soul for a personal example that exceeds the petty peril of eating more dark chocolate than I should, or watching one more series episode because I am drawn into what just happened before I have time to mentally commit to getting up. Or doing a kind deed, at least one a day. (That’s a very good thing, by the way) I am so pleased, so thankful for the example God prompted for me. Thank you Lord.

Sadness Only a Kid Can Claim

During my elementary school years I lived with my birth mother, and her mother, my grandma. Home base was on Main Street, with bumpy, cracked sidewalks, a skate key, a baton, a treehouse, an outside kitchen, a porch swing, a stash of nickel-a-pack sweet tarts, a library card and a porch swing.

I gave that porch swing my undivided attention for hours at a time. Just me and the book I was reading. I loved reading as a child. Summers were glorious that way. I had hard-fought reasons for pledging my attention to a good story other than the one I lived in. It took hardly a chapter, maybe two to give in to a narrative that let me forget my own. And I sailed through the book as if turning the pages was jelly beans to my soul. Before I finished I came to understand the importance of knowing whose story I would read next. This, because I was so sad, as only a kid can claim before the world starts naming all the reasons. I was just sad to arrive at the last page, and read the final sentence. 

As I got older the sadness stayed but was joined by disappointment with the last sentence. Never quite satisfied with the author’s choice of words to cut me off from the world I had given my undivided attention to. That’s the writer in me.

As I grew up, had a family, and navigated a demanding career there was less time for books I read by my personal choice. I also discovered something about when I read. Once I get past the first few chapters, my attention takes on an urgency, and at the risk of sounding overly dramatic, an obsession to keep reading. 

And this is exactly why I am so happy with this example within the context of Psalm 31:20. It is the reason for it.

When I get to the moment that urgency begins to rise in me as I read a book, everything else begins to methodically, effortlessly fall away. Fall away from what? Fall away from importance. I become committed to the characters, the confrontation, the twists in plot, the scheming, the possible, the impossible, the lure of a story arc. My attention becomes exclusive. Dedicated to feeding the urgency. So everything I do serves one purpose: get back to the book. Finish work, finish dinner, finish the day so I can get back to the book.

Pursue God. Only God.

There is so much of my childhood wrapped up in this metaphorical example.  But for all of us, if we find the plots in our life that have us succumbing to the “human intrigue” of it all, those life pursuits that roll easily into plots, with characters, and schemes, that allow our pride to accelerate to the pace of obsession, we must turn back toward God. 

Hear the words of King Solomon:

Proverbs 6:18 tells us there are six things the Lord hates, one being this.

18         a heart that devises wicked schemes,

        feet that are quick to rush into evil,

Proverbs 19:21

21 Many are the plans in a person’s heart,

    but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.

This is all the perfect answer to why we pursue God. Only God.

And with this I stop here. It’s your homework now. You’re turn to think about this. And while you are at it, think about how identifying some plots in your life that have pulled you into obsession, and how amazing it would be to share this with someone who needs to live a life with God. It’s this simple, human. Share Psalm 31.