Psalm 3
Covered by the Glory
King David’s song when he was forced to flee from Absalom, his own son
The Humbling of a King
1 Lord, I have so many enemies, so many who are against me.
2 Listen to how they whisper their slander against me, saying:
“Look! He’s hopeless! Even God can’t save him from this!”
Pause in his presence
The Help of God
3 But in the depths of my heart I truly know
that you, Yahweh, have become my Shield;
You take me and surround me with yourself.
Your glory covers me continually.
You lift high my head when I bow low in shame.
4 I have cried out to you, Yahweh, from your holy presence.
You send me a Father’s help.
Pause in his presence
The Song of Safety
5 So now I’ll lie down and sleep like a baby—
then I’ll awake in safety, for you surround me with your glory.
6 Even though dark powers prowl around me,
I won’t be afraid.
The Secret of Strength
7 I simply cry out to you:
“Rise up and help me, Lord! Come and save me!”
And you will slap them in the face,
breaking the power of their words to harm me.
8 My true hero comes to my rescue,
for the Lord alone is my Savior.
What a feast of favor and bliss he gives his people!
Pause in his presence
Psalm 4
An Evening Prayer for Help
For the Pure and Shining One
For the end, a melody by King David
1 God, you are my righteousness, my champion defender.
Answer me when I cry for help!
Whenever I was in distress, you enlarged me.
I’m being squeezed again—I need your kindness right away!
Grant me your grace, hear my prayer, and set me free!
2 Listen to me, you elite among men:
How long will you defame my honor
and drag it down into shame?
Will you ever stop insulting me?
How long will you set your heart on shadows,
chasing your lies and delusions?
Pause in his presence
3 May we never forget that the Lord works wonders
for every one of his devoted lovers.
And this is how I know that he will answer my every prayer.
4 Tremble in awe before the Lord, and do not sin against him.
Be still upon your bed and search your heart before him.
Pause in his presence
5 Bring to Yahweh the sacrifice of righteousness and put your trust in him.
6 Lord, prove them wrong when they say, “God can’t help you!”
Let the light of your radiant face
break through and shine upon us!
7 The intense pleasure you give me
surpasses the gladness of harvest time,
even more than when the harvesters
gaze upon their ripened grain
and when their new wine overflows.
8 Now, because of you, Lord, I will lie down in peace and sleep comes at once,
for no matter what happens, I will live unafraid!
I love David for so many reasons. I have this picture of him as the quintessential Renaissance Man. He just has so much on his resume and his record, I can’t always grasp everything that made him this unique man after God’s own heart. He was a shepherd boy, giant slayer, musician, poet, king, soldier, adulterer, murderer, confessor, leader, husband, father, friend--the list goes on and on. But, at his core, David was a man after God’s own heart who found himself the target of his enemies’, and even his own son’s, attacks and lies over and over and over again.
Have you been there?
Because I have.
I love David not only because of his impressive resume and his heart, but because he is innately human, and his humanity has taught me how to pray. These two psalms convey David’s cry for help, and what I love about them is how raw, emotional, and real they are. David doesn’t edit his thoughts and feelings. He brings them all before his Lord and lays them at his feet in desperation first, before anything else. He cries out to God for his rescue and his mercy in very specific situations. These aren’t blanket prayers. They’re not your run of the mill “please protect me and my family” prayers. No, these are specific prayers for specific situations where David finds himself feeling hopeless and alone. So often lately, I’ve heard Christ-following people talk about how they don’t pray for themselves, how they feel guilty and unworthy to bring their hurts, their needs, their wants before God. But, here in these psalms, in these prayers, we have such an amazing example of how David, a man after God’s own heart, prayed, and his prayers are full of petitions, of pleadings, of desperation. And, that’s how I would encourage you to pray as well: openly, honestly, in your brokenness, and in your desperation.
What happens next in these psalms happens in most of David’s psalms; his tone and his focus both shift from his own desperation to the hope he has in God--hope despite his past, hope despite his seemingly hopeless situation, hope that God will once again be his rescue. Because David knows. He knows that the “Lord works wonders for every one of his devoted lovers.” He doesn’t doubt that God will answer his prayers because David has not only seen God answer his own prayers, but he has seen God answer the prayers of the Israelites for years. Not only does God want us to cry out to him in desperation, but he wants us to pray in hope with faith, trusting that God will, in fact, answer our prayers and be our shield, our protection, and our rescuer. Nothing helps calm us in our present than remembering God’s faithfulness in the past because God does not change. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and he is faithful to fulfill all of his promises to us.
Over and over again, throughout his soap opera of a life, David cries out to the Lord, and He shows up offering David a Father’s help. This is a phrase David uses repeatedly throughout his psalms, and I love this image, this picture of a helpless child being picked up, dusted off, and brought to safety by his father. And, that image isn’t one that is reserved only for David or those individuals we read about in bible stories. No, that’s a help that we have access to as well, if we are honest about our need for Him and His help. God knows the desires of our hearts. He knows what we need before we even ask, just like he knew David’s situation and the desires of his heart, but David still cried out to Him with honesty, and transparency, and pain. And that is precisely what God wants from us as well. He wants relationship with us, and we all know that no relationship works without communication. God desires that communication from us. He desires our cries. He desires our praise, and He desires to offer us a Father’s help.
And after we’ve brought our cries to Him, he desires to give us peace and rest.
Did you notice that in these psalms? How many times did David encourage us to simply pause and be still in God’s presence? After he has cried out to God, after he has remembered who God is and what he has done in the past, David stops. He pauses. He rests. He even goes so far in both of these psalms to sleep in peace. Because he knows he has no reason to fear. He knows that, despite whatever happens, he can rest in the peace that comes from living unafraid.
I don’t know what your situation looks like, who the enemies are that are attacking you, who the people are that are lying about you or gossiping about you, what the distress is in your heart, where the anxiety is coming from that is crippling you, what the lies are that the enemy is telling you, but my prayer for you today is that you can cry out to the Lord in complete honesty and transparency today, that no matter where you’ve been or where you are now, you can be real about your fears and pain, that you can plead with God for your rescue, knowing and hoping in faith that He will absolutely reach down, once again, and offer a Father’s help to you.
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