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.
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