Thoughts from Psalm 3

One of the great omissions we often make in life, an omission that often causes us times of great anxiety and anguish, is the failure to recognize and keep an account of the acts of God when he has protected us. If you have to stop to think of such a time, that only proves the point. We too often, perhaps most often, when we have avoided some calamities shrug them off with a “Boy, that was close,” or “That scared me,” or “I was lucky, very fortunate,” etc. as if somehow willy-nilly fate had spared us a stray bullet. Then, when real trouble comes, we have no memories of a history of God’s dealing graciously with us.

In Psalm 3, we see David at a time when that could well have been his situation. (You can read the story behind this in II Samuel beginning at chapter 13 reading through chapter 17.) He was a king; yet, his son Absalom had risen up against him, drove him from his throne and his kingdom and was now pursuing him with an army of men seeking to kill him. We see something of David’s situation as he exclaims, “Many are those who rise up against me, those who trouble me have grown in number, many say there is no help for him in God.’

Martin Luther said once there is no temptation on earth or even in hell to equal the temptation of despairing of God’s help. Well might that thought have entered David’s mind. And it must surely have been a stinging rebuke because of David’s sin. I think it is not only for musical instruction David now enters “Selah”, rest, stop and think about this into his song.

It Perhaps David ran a list through his mind as he recalled his sins against God. Who among us can but think it is true that I have sinned and sinned greatly? It is true that on the scales of justice I deserve this. What else could a reasonable person expect for such conduct?

“But you Jehovah…” No greater disjunct has ever been uttered. “But God…” We see this disjunct in Ephesians 2. Paul begins “And you being dead etc. were the children of wrath…’ (and in the Greek text it comes in the 4^th verse) “but God….” I am pursued by my own son and multitudes who seek to kill me,  I have no armies with which to protect myself. They say “God will not help him.” That is what they say, “but you, Jehovah, are my shield and my glory; the one who lifts up my head.” Well might my head hand down in despair and defeat but you God lift it up. David knows this because he has kept account of God’s deliverances, He has not passed off God’s past works as luck or good fortune “I dodged that bullet.” He recall the past times that God has struck his enemies “on the cheekbone” and delivered him from danger, death and defeat. When David was but a shepherd boy, God had delivered the lion, the bear and Goliath into his hand and God had delivered him from Saul when he sought to kill him. So, now David, recalling God’s care over him can sing “they say…but you, Jehovah lift up my head.” Thus, I both ay down and sleep.

Whatever betides, there is no tossing and turning in the night for the child of God who keeps account of God’s care over him but as David says elsewhere, he both lays down in peace and sleeps.

Blessed is the man whose God is Jehovah.