You have shown your people desperate times; you have given us wine that makes us stagger. – Psalm 60:3

Today's Scripture Reading (July 11, 2025): Psalm 60

We are living through a fentanyl crisis. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is up to a hundred times stronger than morphine. Part of the crisis is that other illicit drugs are being sold that have been mixed with fentanyl. The user often seems to be ignorant of the fact of whether fentanyl has been cut into the drug or how much. So, the user takes too much and frequently dies. Between 2019 and 2023, deaths due to fentanyl in the United States rose from 36,400 to 72,800. In 2001, the number of deaths due to fentanyl was 957, less than a thousand people. In 2005, opioid deaths in the United States accounted for 5.8% of all overdose deaths. In 2023, that number had jumped to 69%, or a 1,150% increase in the percentage of overdose deaths because of opioids. To say that we have to do something is a bit of an understatement, but maybe the fight begins with why people are chasing after the high so diligently that they are willing to take a chance by taking drugs that might cost them their lives. It is another reason that we need to curb the uncontrolled drug use in our society.

David writes that God has put the people of Israel through desperate times, a comment which is somewhat incongruent with what we know of the era during which this Psalm was written. According to the historical record, this was a period of successes and victories for David and the nation of Israel. Israel had subdued even the strongest of their neighbors. The Moabites, Ammonites, and even the Philistines had been defeated. David had even struck down 18,000 Edomites in the Valley of Salt, an area south of the Dead Sea between Judah and Edom.

However, we don't know everything that happened during this time, and within the context of this Psalm, there must have also been some significant defeats. Perhaps all the wins made David and Israel overconfident, and so they also suffered at least one humiliating defeat. And it must have been defeats that had staggered the nation. The nation felt like they had drunk too much wine, even when none had been consumed. It was like the water they were drinking had been laced with something the nation had never experienced before. Israel was experiencing a helpless and hopeless situation.

Except that God was still in control. And even though Israel had failed and was staggered by their overconfidence, feeling like they had taken a powerful, unknown drug, they had a faith that said that what God had done, he could also undo.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Psalms 15 & 16