Monday
Psalm 3.1-2 “O Lord, how many are my foes. How many rise up against me! Many are saying of me, ‘God will not deliver him!’”
In my teens I used to work beside one of the most negative folk I’ve ever known. No cloud ever had a silver lining! One work colleague said, “Aye everything in his favour’s against him!” But the truth is, sometimes in all of our lives there come times when there’s too much coming at us at the same time. This Psalm was written by someone who felt overwhelmed, and there were no silver linings. So he complained to God, which is exactly the right thing to do! When everything seems to be conspiring against us, the first response of faith is to remember God is for us.
Tuesday
Psalm 3.3 “But you are a shield around me, O Lord; you bestow glory on me and lift up my head.”
Part of the experience of feeling down is the body language, a head-hanging lethargy. Time and again the Psalm poet gives the bad news, then the counter argument – “But…” Yes there is much that gets us down, but God is a shield around us. Yes we might feel like hanging our heads in defeat, but God gives the energy and strength to lift up our heads and look at the world again, this time through the eyes of faith that God is to be trusted. God’s glory is most clearly shown when his grace is made perfect in our weakness, and we hold across heart and mind the shield of faith.
Wednesday
Psalm 3.4 “For the Lord I cry aloud, and he answers me from his holy hill.”
Prayer is not always about decorum, politely asking for God’s blessing. Nor are reverence and deference the most important inner attitudes in prayer. The psalm poet is shouting, pleading, arguing, with persistence and an intense need to be heard. When much is going wrong, and everything seems against us, there is an important place for honestly telling God how desperate we are. The prayer of the troubled is not an attempt to minimise our difficulties, or talk ourselves into acceptance. Prayer is a forceful cry for help, believing we are heard by God who is never so far away he does not hear, or will not answer. “I cry aloud, and he answers.”
Thursday
Psalm 3.5 “I lie down and sleep; I wake again because the Lord sustains me.”
We all need a sound theology of sleep, as well as a sound sleep! Anxiety, life under pressure, too much going on in our head, the long build-up of stress; we’ve all known the churning misery of sleepless nights. It’s as if we don’t trust ourselves to let go, and risk loss of control by falling asleep! Yet every day we wake up we do so by the sustaining grace of God who gives us life in the first place. There is profound theology in the vivid memory of disciples thrown about in the boat during the dangerous squall on the Sea of Galilee, and “Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion.”
Friday
Psalm 3.6 “I will not fear the tens of thousands drawn up against me on every side.”
This isn’t empty bravado. The Psalm poet is a realist, it’s just that his view of reality includes God. Again, we’ve all been in that place when we feel hemmed in, surrounded by more than we can deal with. Those words, “I will not fear”, are spoken in defiance of the worst the world can do. We have sung these words often enough! ““The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose, / I will not, I will not desert to his foes; / That soul, though all hell should endeavour to shake, / I’ll never, no, never, no, never forsake!” And God says, “That’s a promise!”
Saturday
Psalm 3.7 “Arise, O Lord! Deliver me, O my God! Strike all my enemies on the jaw; break the teeth of the wicked.”
Exclamation marks signify theology with a loud voice, faith with the volume turned up. There is both confidence and desperation in the words. The Psalm poet knows ‘how many are my foes’, and ‘the tens of thousands drawn up against me on every side.” This Psalm is for those times when we’ve run out of options, ideas, energy yet the hard stuff keeps coming. The strong language of broken jaws and teeth is hardly what we would call devotional prose! It is fighting talk, but it is God who is asked to act, to deliver, to enable life to go on, to lift up our heads, to be a shield around us. Christians are not exempt from storms of circumstance, whether on the Sea of Galilee or in the life that is ours. Sometimes our prayers need exclamation marks!
Sunday
Psalm 3.8 “From the Lord comes deliverance. May your blessing be on your people.”
In a self-help culture, awash with exaggerated positivity about what our life can be like if we just dream it, or go for it, people of faith live to an alternative worldview. “From the Lord comes deliverance.” It simply isn’t true that all the answers lie inside us, or that all problems can be solved by our determination, or mind-set. Blessing, when it comes, is gift. Sure, it requires our faithfulness, trust, obedience, and it may well cost us. But the Lord is at work in our lives, always and everywhere. Even the tough times and hard miles. He is our shield, bestows glory, and lifts up our head.
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