PSALM 61
June 28, 2009
with Matt Johnson
INTRODUCTIONIt’s been an interesting seven days. Last Sunday afternoon Adam and Corrie and Ashley and I set out for a camping trip to Gatlinburg in our blazer with pop up camper in tow. Three hours later we were sitting on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere in Kentucky with a blown engine. It was all very surreal. We got towed back to town by a great tow truck guy named Hank, who loaned us a beat up old S10 named Old Blue and send us on our way to the local Day’s Inn for the night to try and get a game plan for the coming days. That night from the advice of many car guys I know and trust, I decided to try and sell the Blazer rather than pay the money to tow it back to Cincinnati and try and fix it. The next day I called Hank’s Boss, Gene, and asked him if he was willing to purchase the vehicle from me. He was, but at a fraction of my best hopes. After a little discussion about the price of the blazer was settled at a whopping $100, Gene handed me a crisp $100 bill and said, “Don’t spend it all in one place…” Glad he found humor in this… But then he handed over the keys to his four door f150 and said “have a good trip, drop it off on your way back to Cincinnati”. I was amazed. There’s the old saying that someone would give the shirt off their back, but the keys out of their pocket… that was a new one for me.
I found myself looking at the Psalm that I was supposed to be preaching on, and thinking to myself, “OK God, object lesson complete… you can stop now.” Apparently he wasn’t done though. On Tuesday we went up into the mountains to a great little spot where two rivers meet and flow out as one. Where they meet, they form a great little swimming hole, and it seemed like a relaxing place to be. Only one problem… the large amounts of rain from the days and weeks past had caused the currents of the two rivers to be much stronger than normal. Where they met, they created a nice little vortex that sucked down into a pretty deep river bed below. Ashley and I coaxed our way into the freezing water until finally loosing our balance on the rocky bottom and allowing the current to pull us along. We’d seen other people do the same thing, so it shouldn’t have been a problem. But the current caught Ashley just right that it pulled her into the spiraling area where the two rivers met. The frigid temperatures of the water took her breath away and she had a really hard time getting her limbs to move from panic. She got sucked under. I was three feet away swimming as hard as I could against the current and not moving, unable to reach her or help. Having a pretty good presence about her in the situation, she flipped over onto her back and began kicking her way back to the surface. She was able to kick her way out of the down current, and make it to shore on the other side of the river before the fear of the possibilities of what could have happen set in and she broke down.
We joked that we should write a book about it called a Day Late and a Car Short. So, three days into vacation and I have lost a car and almost lost a wife… Needless to say, I thought God had given me sufficient material for my sermon. Don’t get me wrong, other than these two events, we had a good time on our trip. Thanks to the kindness of Gene for letting us use his truck, and for Lyle York coming to our rescue on Wednesday to bring us home from Mt. Vernon, Kentucky, we made it home safely with no other issues.
So I sit down to write my sermon on Psalm 61, and I read these words…
Read Psalm 61
CONTEXTCry out to God in time of need… Check.
Faint heart feeling like at the end of the earth… Check.
Needing help to get on solid rock… Check – Literally for Ashley.
In my mind I thought that this sermon would be easy… it’d written itself from our experiences on vacation. But then I started to look at the context in which David wrote this psalm. Most people believe that it was written in the time of David’s life when he was king and his son, Absalom, creates an uprising and overthrows the king, claiming the throne for his own. David flees Jerusalem to protect himself and spare the lives of his servants and the residents of the city. He finds himself living in the wilderness, waiting for word from advisors and waiting for Absalom to hunt him down. He is cut to the core with emotion that I simply cannot relate to. His son has overtaken the kingdom. Was this betrayal? Was this God’s hand of blessing passing on to someone else? Has his own flesh and blood turned against him, or even worse, his God turned his back to David? How would he survive? Would he ever become King again? Would he die at the hand of his son?
In the wilderness, waiting for news, seeking God’s presence and his assistance, he pens these words, praying this prayer…
Read Psalm 61:1-4 again.
David has experienced more grief in his lifetime than I would ever wish on anyone. He’s hunted down by his best friend’s father, forcing him to live in caves as he runs from Saul. He commits adultery and loses a child. One of his daughters is raped by her half brother. The half brother is later killed by another of David’s sons. Absalom overthrows him from the throne. Absalom gets killed in battle by David’s military leader, Joab. Later another of David’s sons claims the throne without his father’s blessing as well. That’s just the cliff notes version of the sorrow and suffering that David encountered.
In my arrogance, I had thought that having a car break down and a small swimming incident was somehow on the same level of despair to what David was experiencing when he penned this psalm. I was humbled, and honestly, a little embarrassed to realize just how small my problems are in comparison.
I thought of other people in my life who have been through sooo much more…
I think of my dad, who’s mom dropped him off at his Grandma’s house when he was 13 and told him that she didn’t want him anymore. I think of my friend Shawn, who’s mom was a prostitute and father a drug addict. I think of my friend Heather, who lost her mom to lung cancer just three months after being diagnosed with the disease. She did not smoke. I think of a man named Tom from Rochester that had recently lost his wife and lived alone, and was laid off of his job two weeks before Christmas. I think of a dear woman, Thea, who’s mom was a practicing Wiccan witch. To this day Thea will tell you of conversations that she had with demons sitting on the foot of her bed each night when she’d go to sleep as a child.
All of these people have experienced such deep wounds from life. Wounds that would be enough to put most people on a downward spiral in life that they would never recover from.
This seemed like a psalm they would write, not me…
Even in my inability to fully relate to David, let me share with you a few pieces of truth that I think we can all learn from this psalm…
First, David cries out to God. I know this is simple, but it’s a faith lesson we’ve all got to learn. In your times of need, you can either cry out for help or remain silent. Too many times we fail to utter even the smallest of cries for help. We don’t need lavish prayers, but honest heartfelt pleas for assistance. God doesn’t want your words, he wants your faith and your trust. David says that he’s at the end of the earth, and his heart is faint. No doubt emotionally David would have felt at his wit’s end, but physically he is also removed from his home. He is worn down, weak physically, emotionally, and spiritually, no doubt. Yet with the energy he has left, he calls out to God. All too often we find ourselves in this place and we think that we’re too tired to even pray – at exactly the time when we need to the most.
Not only did David cry out though, he calls God out to listen to him. What boldness! If he, in his deepest moments of pain, can boldly call upon God to hear him, surely we can as well in our times of strife in our daily lives. We can have confidence that God will hear our prayers and that they will not fall upon deaf or uncaring ears. Cry out to God, asking for help, confidently knowing that he will listen.
Second, David asks God for security and protection. The imagery here is that of a shipwrecked sailor seeking refuge on the rocks of the shore. He cannot pull himself up to safety upon the rocks because they are too high to reach. David understands that he can’t do this on his own – his safety and security is simply out of his ability. I know one of my biggest struggles with faith is that I find it all to easy to be self reliant. That’s how we’re taught though isn’t is? Pull yourself up by the bootstraps and move on? Anything short is a sign of weakness and inadequacy. Yet David recognizes that he’s woefully incapable of survival on his own, and he asks for God’s protection, knowing only He can keep him safe. In your moments of need, ask for God’s safety in your life as only he can.
Third, David understands that God has been faithful before. You’ve been a refuge for me. You’ve kept me safe in the past, you’ve answered my prayers, you’ve sustained me, please do it again… A famous preacher named Charles Spurgon says that “experience is the nurse of faith”. That is to say that as your faith grows, your previous encounters with God will help you in your times of need. Or as Dr. Phil would say, “past behaviors are the best predictors of future actions”. At this point, David has been through a lot already in his life and he can trace the ways that God has brought him along and kept him safe to this place. We too can look back and see the ways that God has answered prayers and has been faithful to us. No doubt, in our times of need, we need to remember that God has been faithful to us in the past and he will remain faithful to us in our current struggles.
Fourth, David asks for God’s presence. Let me dwell in your house, let me find rest in the shelter of your wings. There is comfort and peace in God’s presence! The one thing David asks for in this is protection and God’s presence. When I pray, I ask for sooo many other things… God, do this please… God, do that please… God, please don’t let this happen… How about, God, be near and let me find peace in your presence. Doesn’t that sound nice? To find rest and reprieve under the wings of God? Like a mother hen cuddling her chicks close to her in protection… What a beautiful image of faith and prayer. In our times of struggle, there is nothing that we need more than God’s presence. Hopefully we can learn to echo David’s prayer in our own lives when the problems of the world crowd in.
Fifth, David prays outside of his own current struggles. It’s amazing how inward and selfish our prayers can seem when we’re facing difficulties in life. Our prayers are so “ME” focused that we forget that God has a lot of other people to deal with as well. But David, even in the midst of it all, prays for the life of the King. There are a few differing views on this – some people believe that David is praying for his own son, who is currently king, asking for God to prolong his life. What a selfless act of a father. Others believe that it’s a general prayer for the throne of Israel to be one that will be lasting and will be guided by God. Either way, David is praying for much more than his own immediate problems. When we pray, if only we could see past our own struggles enough to pray for others around us that need it so badly.
Finally, In the midst of it all, David praises. The temporary problems that he faces are no reason to turn from God. Hear that again… The temporary problems that he faces are no reason to turn from God. He knows that no matter what happens in his life and his circumstances, God is still worthy of his praise. Thankfully, most of will never know the deep wounds of the heart that David felt, yet in the midst of it all, David was a man that always found reason to praise God.
CLOSEAs we look at the voice of the singer through the book of the Psalms, and we encounter David’s heartfelt cry in Psalm 61, let me share with you the words of another song writer… Bart Millard of Mercy Me.
Mercy Me – Bring the RainI can count a million times
People asking me how I
Can praise You with all that I've gone through
The question just amazes me
Can circumstances possibly change who I forever am in You
Maybe since my life was changed
Long before these rainy days
It's never really ever crossed my mind
To turn my back on you, oh Lord
My only shelter from the storm
But instead I draw closer through these times
So I pray
Bring me joy, bring me peace
Bring the chance to be free
Bring me anything that brings You glory
And I know there'll be days When this life brings me pain
But if that's what it takes to praise You, Jesus, bring the rain
I am yours regardless of the clouds that may
Loom above because you are much greater than
My pain you who made a way for me
Suffering your destiny
So tell me whats a little rain
Psalm 89
