Psalm 31:2 – “Needy”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

²Incline to me Your ear. Quickly rescue me. Be to me to a rock from strength, to a house of fortresses to save me.

The symbols David includes in this prayer are like a string of pearls to us beleaguered believers. “Incline Your ear to me.” What a rapturous joy it is for us to cry out to our God, to know He is at this very minute keeping an entire universe in motion, that He probably has a billion other people crying out at the very same time, and yet, like a kind, devoted father, He leans down His Divine ear to hear our feeble sobs.

“Quickly rescue me.” The word translated “rescue” paints the idea of being snatched out or drawn out. The silly child has fallen into a hole only to have the strong arms of his father reach down and draw him out. “As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that are His.” And David adds, “Quickly!” Here we are, simple-minded children crying out “Quickly!” to our God who inhabits eternity. Time means nothing to Him, yet He knows it can mean everything to us – and once again He stoops to hear us begging for relief “quickly!”

“Be to me a rock of strength, a house of fortresses.” In this world I am constantly reminded I am not a rock. I have no strength. And I have no fortress of my own. After 60 years I will say without hesitation this is a very scary world. Nothing is secure. As poor Job found, everything we care about, everything we treasure can be gone in a heartbeat – and the truth is there is nothing I can do, in the end, to prevent it.

Right now in America, we are having a flu epidemic. People are actually dying. And not just feeble old people. Healthy young adults are getting “a cold” and three days later they’re dead. Perfectly healthy children are doing the same. It chills my heart to realize not just my parents but any one of my children or grandchildren could be next. Even my beautiful wife. The thought stirs an unthinkable, icy terror to the very depths of my soul. And what can I do about it? Pray. Nothing more. Take away my blessed assurance and what can I do? Nothing.

But I have a Rock. I have a Fortress. And like David and the billions of believers who’ve lived in this world, I go to Him. “Some trust in horses and some in chariots” but we believers learned long ago they’ll do you no good. “We trust in the Lord our God.” The inexhaustible kindness of His big loving heart is my refuge. His wisdom to do whatever is best is my comfort. His omnipotent strength is my confidence.

And I love that the last words of this verse are “Save me!” The word translated “save” is the same word from which derives the name “Jeshua” – which we Anglicize to Jesus. “You shall name Him Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.” Years ago I realized that the very basic nature of our relationship with God is that we need to be saved and He is a saving God. In other words, here we are crying out, here we are messed up (again), in all likelihood whatever it is, we got ourselves into it, and even if He does save us today, we’ll be back on our faces tomorrow. We are a very, very sad case to be anyone’s children, much less servants. Hopeless, helpless, failing we are. But He doesn’t save us because we need to be saved. He saves us because He is a saving God! It’s who He is. That’s what He does. It’s okay that I’m hopeless – He is a saving God. It’s okay that I’m constantly needing Him. It’s okay that I’m so hopelessly weak. That is our relationship – I need to be saved, and He is a saving God.

Jesus. The “radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being.” Jesus. Savior. Saving One. Immanuel, God with us.

Every word of this Psalm is a pearl specifically because we come to Him needing Him and He is to us everything our hearts ever dreamed, immeasurably more than we could ever have asked or thought.

Cry on, O needy ones!

Psalm 31:1 – “In You”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹In You, YHVH, I have taken refuge. Do not let me be ashamed to ages. In Your righteousness, deliver me.

As I’m studying this morning, what strikes me most is the utterly unspeakable gift of prayer. The first two words of this Psalm are “In You …”

Here is David, overwhelmed by the troubles of life. See the rest of the Psalm: “Free me from the trap that is set for me … I am in distress … my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and my body with grief … My life is consumed with anguish and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak …” David is feeling, like we so often do, beaten down and just crushed by it all. “Barely able to whisper a prayer.”

And how does the rest of the human race respond to such misery? Some collapse under it all and need medication. Some lash out in anger to hurt whomever they think is to blame. Someone else imagines more money will solve it all and resolve to do whatever it takes to get it. A thousand, million different ways to somehow survive this ceaselessly brutal business called life.

And what does David do? “In You …”

He turns to prayer.

And not just “prayers” – as if some religious incantations could magically alter his circumstances. He prays. He turns his weary heart to look the God of Heaven straight in the eyes. He not only believes in God, but he believes that God is personal and available. “In You …”

Isn’t it an amazing gift of grace that our God is personally available to each of us – that He is always “there,” that we can actually believe He cares, that we can believe He is more powerful than whatever it is we’re facing today? David lived half-way around the world 3,000 years ago, and yet here we are today with this same amazing privilege – “In You …”

How many billions of people have lived and died fighting and scheming to try and get by, but on the other hand, how many were people of faith – people like David, who faced the same afflictions as everyone else, yet, instead of turning on others, turned to God – “In You …”

And what is amazing to me is that, turning to Him, I don’t need to fight and scheme. I have a God to trust. I turn to Him and find the peace of believing somehow it will all work out. In Him we find the peace that it will be okay. In Him, I find this giant loving heart that welcomes me even as I’m so aware I don’t deserve it. But I need it. I so need to be loved and helped. And that is who He is. “You shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins …” And when I’ve been sheltered in that kind of gracious love, it makes me want to show that same love to the people around me. It frees me to love.

But it’s all “In You …”

What a wonderful God He is. I turned to Him years ago just needing Him to somehow fix me and what did I find? A God who is everything I could have ever possibly dreamed He could be and so much more, so “exceedingly, abundantly above anything I could have ever asked or thought.”

What an unfathomable blessing it is to be able to turn to Him and say, “In You, O Lord …”

This tired old guy can’t help but close with the words of the old hymn:

What a friend we have in Jesus,

All our sins and griefs to bear;

What a privilege to carry,

Everything to God in prayer!

In You.

Psalm 31:1 – “Promise”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹In You, YHVH, I have taken refuge. Do not let me be ashamed to ages. In Your righteousness, deliver me.

As I related in my last post, I am needing a verse like this right now, needing to buttress my confidence in the Lord and to quiet my naturally worrisome heart. One thing I find tremendously encouraging here is in noting once again that, even living under the Law, David understood grace. “In You I’ve taken refuge.” “In Your righteousness deliver me.” David’s request is, “Never let me be put to shame,” but the basis of his request is not, “Gosh, what a good job I’m doing …” The hope of God’s blessing for David is God Himself! His hope of blessing is not at all in his own merit but rather in a God who is Himself a Blesser.

I can’t resist to insert here something I think few understand – and that is that, even in the Old Testament, God never intended people to live “under the Law” (so to speak). When they told Moses, “All that the Lord commands us, we will do,” the Lord said to him, “Oh that they had such a heart in them.” The plain simple fact was they did not and it took them (like us) about 5 minutes to prove it. As we later learn in Galatians the purpose of the Law always was to bring people to Christ. The purpose of the Law was and is not to give us a system to gain self-righteousness, but rather to show us how utterly hopeless it is that we ever should! In Christ we find grace. In Jesus we meet our Redeemer, we meet our God who sovereignly, wisely, kindly takes complete charge of our lives and who, in showing us Himself, changes us into His image. In Jesus, it’s not about us. It’s about Him.

What is wonderful to realize is that there were a LOT of people in the Old Testament who got it. The Psalms are literally a book of grace even in what was supposedly the age of Law.

This is sooooooo important, because when I (or we) come to a verse like this, struggling with my fears, the last thing in the world I would need is to be clobbered with my duties. I’m already too aware I don’t deserve the Lord’s kindness. I’m already too aware I deserve to fail. But instead, what do I find? I find a God who is my hope, not because of who I am, but because of who He is. “In You I have taken refuge.”

Then there is this matter of “being ashamed.” I said in my last post, I realize that is exactly what I’m afraid of. I’m afraid of failing in particular projects I’m working on right now, afraid of the shame of failing. In this verse David prays, “Never let me be ashamed” (to which my fearing heart cries, “…Please!!!” That is precisely what I need Him to do.

And then I look at lots of other verses in the Bible that mention this “shame” problem and what do I find? I find one promise repeated three times: “The one trusting in You will never be put to shame” (Isa 28:16; Rom 9:33; 10:11). Notice it is a promise. In Psalm 31:1, it is a prayer, a request, but then we have it stated as a promise and that in a verse repeated 3x. I don’t mind noting that 3 is God’s number. When things happen or are said 3x, it is often the Lord putting His signature on it. Also, He Himself says, “In the mouths of two or three witnesses, let every matter be established.”

As I noticed this, I wondered, “Is this really a promise I can count on? If I am honestly trying to be confident in Him, can I rest in His promise that somehow or another He will always protect me from shame?” As I read other verses, I came across the following:

“Do not be afraid; you will not suffer shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated … For the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer” (Isa 54:4,5).

I am inclined to believe that, yes, this is a promise, that as I seek to quiet my worrying heart and just rest in Him, that somehow, some way He will make sure when the smoke clears and the dust settles, I will not be ashamed.

That is a new thought for me.

A promise.

If I really can count on that, it is enormously encouraging and quieting for me.

I feel like there is a little more to understand but that I can wade out into life taking this jewel of a promise with me and that, whatever it is I might be missing, He’ll teach me along the way.

So, that’s my plan – to head into my day saying in my heart, “In You, Lord, I have taken refuge. Let me never be put to shame. In Your righteousness, deliver me,” and trust that He has already promised to in fact answer that prayer.

Lord help us all today to rest in You, to be confident in You, to love because we’re loved, and to be people of grace – because You have given us very great and precious promises.

Psalm 31:1 – “Back”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹In You, YHVH, I have taken refuge. Do not let me be ashamed to ages. In Your righteousness, deliver me.

It’s time for me to ponder in the Psalms for a while. I greatly enjoy all of my Bible studies. Even as I sit here typing, I think of my studies, for instance, through the book of Ruth or through I & II Peter and good memories come like a flood. Every time I crack God’s Word He teaches me amazing things and blesses me. But I have to say, there is nothing like the Psalms.

Here, it seems to me, we meet the Lord in all the greatness of His glory. Here I see His face as if I were Mary sitting there at Jesus’ feet, just enraptured in Him. In a sense, the Psalms leave behind even thoughts of my own duties and obligations, even my own service to Him. The Psalms are so all about Him. But like Mary, it is in seeing His face that I am changed. To see Him is to be changed. To see His greatness raises my meager faith. It opens my blind eyes. Seeing Him makes me want to serve Him better … and it just seems to me there is no other book of the Bible where we see Him so clearly as we do in the Psalms.

Early in my Christian life, I embarked on the habit of reading the Bible for at least 5 minutes every night before I went to sleep. That has been a blessed habit, as it allows me to read completely through the Bible, from cover to cover, about every two and a half years. Even in 5 minute increments, there are definitely some books that are hard to work through – like Leviticus – but I found the first few times through, it was particularly difficult to get through the Psalms. It just seemed so repetitive. “Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, praise the Lord.” I just didn’t “get it.” Then I read a book, “The Letters of Henry Venn.”

Henry Venn was an old reformed pastor from I think the 1700’s in England and, as they did back then, people had saved up the letters he wrote them through the years. After his death, someone gathered up a lot of them and put them together in a book. As I read those letters, as I read the words of this good godly man communicating his thoughts, desires, wishes, and concerns to his family, friends, and church members, what I saw was a man who seemed to literally breathe the Psalms. Here was a man who had so filled his heart and mind with the Psalms that they seemed to just flow out of his mouth no matter what he was saying. And of course those Psalms he verbalized were expressions of the greatness of God woven all throughout the kaleidoscope of human life.

Suddenly I saw the Psalms in a whole different light. Suddenly, they were about God woven into the fabric of my very existence. Suddenly His greatness permeated everything! And so began this lifelong love affair with the Psalms – or should I say the God of the Psalms?

The last year or two of my life I’ve made quantum leaps ahead putting worry behind me and learning to actually just be confident in the Lord all day every day. Particularly He showed me Himself in the book of Ruth and in Psalms 111,112,&113, and then in Paul’s statement in I Thes 4:11, “Make it your ambition to be quiet …” Being quiet. “In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.” It has been a great blessing not to have to live on the constant emotional roller coaster of fear and doubt.

When I was young I had one particularly good boss who observed what a psycho I was and told me, “Don, life is like a boat and you can live it one of two ways – you can either run to one side and just before the boat tips over, run back to the other side, and run back and forth, and you’ll stay afloat – or you can just sit on the keel.” At the time I understood exactly what he was saying – that I was driving myself crazy, but I had no idea how to change. I suppose it is sad to admit it took 40 years to finally learn but at least I am here. The Lord has finally taught me to sit on the keel – to just let Him captain the ship.

But, all of that said, I have found lately that I seem to have slidden back into my old habits. I particularly have two projects at work that are “worrying” me. I’m afraid we won’t meet the deadlines, afraid we’ll be over budget. One of them is a client who fired our company from the last project because things didn’t get done. The other is a brand new client with a nearly impossible deadline. Another project I’m involved in, there was no budget to start with and we’ve had to work on it, all the while knowing we’re losing money. All of these factors add up to losing my grip on “quiet.”

And I say all of this just to highlight what an unspeakable blessing it is to open my Bible to Psalm 31 and read, “In You, O Lord, I have taken refuge; let me never be put to shame. In Your righteousness, deliver me.” 

“Never be put to shame.” That is precisely what I fear – the shame of these projects “failing.” And yet here is this verse reminding me in the Lord I’ve taken refuge. In Him I’ve put my trust. I want to be confident in Him.

Ah, the Great Physician. El Rapha – God our Healer. He knows just the medicine this weary soul needs. And when I turn to the Psalms, as so often is true, He supplies exactly that medicine.

And so, I’m thrilled to be back again, studying in the Psalms. My heart needs an infusion of quietness and confidence. I know those things come only from seeing His face – and in the Psalms, His glory overwhelms me.

Lead on, O King eternal!