Psalm 3
1 O LORD, I have so many enemies;
so many are against me.
2 So many are saying,
“God will never rescue him!”
Interlude
3 But you, O LORD, are a shield around me;
you are my glory, the one who holds my head high.
4 I cried out to the LORD,
and he answered me from his holy mountain.
Interlude
5 I lay down and slept,
yet I woke up in safety,
for the LORD was watching over me.
6 I am not afraid of ten thousand enemies
who surround me on every side.
7 Arise, O LORD!
Rescue me, my God!
Slap all my enemies in the face!
Shatter the teeth of the wicked!
8 Victory comes from you, O LORD.
May you bless your people.
Interlude…
It’s easy for me to read the above kind of hurriedly and not be stirred in my heart. But Psalms is the book of God’s poetry. It is often the guttural cry of his people as they suffered, crying out for deliverance. It is meant to move me, to break the dam around my feelings, and cause me to bring them to my God, and receive His comfort and truth in return. To let Him strengthen my heart and resolve.
This Psalm has a heading:
A psalm of David, regarding the time David fled from his son Absalom.
For some reason I read that slowly today and it landed like a sucker punch.
Absalom, David’s son has been secretly forming a rebellion against his father for years. Some of David’s advisors, his friends, have turned on him. The whole country, David is saying, has lost hope in him. They’ve gone over to Absalom. David has too many enemies. He’s become irrelevant and outdated. He is old. He screwed up raising his kid. David must have felt the ache of loneliness and abandonment, the twisting knife betrayal. He must have been angry, furious, that the kingdom he’d literally built of sweat, tears and blood was taken from Him. Maybe he was racked with guilt that he raised a son so greedy for power that he’d stab his own father in the back. He was probably worried about what will happen to his beloved people. He’s just had to escape the city he loves, the temple and ark left behind. He probably feels that God has given up on him.
2 Samuel 15:25-26
“If the LORD sees fit,” David said, “he will bring me back to see the Ark and the Tabernacle again. But if he is through with me, then let him do what seems best to him.”
2 Samuel 15:30
David walked up the road to the Mount of Olives, weeping as he went. His head was covered and his feet were bare as a sign of mourning. And the people who were with him covered their heads and wept as they climbed the hill.
Pause and consider how David felt.
But God is a shield. When my soul is committed to Him, there is a part of me, the eternal part, that is untouchable, incorruptible, invincible. No disease, no guilt, no shame, no hurt, can stick to that part of me. God is my true glory, true righteous. He is my “anchor within the veil”. What I do and what is done to me cannot change the fact that God holds me up. Here is the toehold, that brings David back from the brink of despair. He cried out and God answered him.
Cry out to God, pause and listen for His answer. Hear it come down the ages.
Oh my soul, rest in the peace and security of God holding you. Do not be afraid of the dangers and enemies surrounding you. These are small and passing, but God is eternal and holds the future. As David walked up the Mount of Olives, he wept. What he was going through was brutal. I’d venture to say he felt hollowed out and utterly defeated. His world was falling into a chasm of disaster. But as he wept and prayed he brought his heart back around to it’s foundation. In the beginning he’d called for God to rescue him and now he’s calling again. Rescue is something we need daily… we look forward to the day when His rescue will be final.
Many years later another King wept on Mount Olives. He faced betrayal there. He was surrounded by enemies. He told them His name and they all fell down. But then He went with them and faced our enemies for us. Though David prayed for God to “slap the face of my enemies”, Jesus let His enemies slap His face. The teeth of our true enemies, sin and death, were shattered by the King who won the victory.
Be still, my heart, pause, and remember.