drawing near . Rest and Rising

The weight of the world crowds in. Hopelessless seems to prevail. My own questions and doubts and worries creep into the mix of messages like an enemy slowly advancing, ready to run rampant, claiming any joy and peace as its spoils.

I feel like that sometimes. It’s hard not to when we look at the world portrayed in our news outlets and social media. When I let my emotions get mired in a growing to do list and the din of how others see me. Or, when I allow that cynical prevailing spirit of the day to penetrate my defenses. As I’ve been reading and thinking through Psalm 3 over the last couple of weeks, it’s been comforting and a little freeing, actually, to realize that David felt that way too. The king described as a “man after God’s heart” had these same moments of weight and doubt. I’m not alone.

As the psalm begins, David is crushing under the weight of the hopelessness of others — their lack of confidence, the discouragement of their lack of faith in him and in God. “Many are saying…” he begins in verse two. That “many” rears it’s head. By his account, he was the talk of the town, and it wasn’t warm and fuzzy. My bible included a cross-reference in this psalm to some of the history of David’s reign over Israel found in the book of I Samuel. As I was reading, I flipped over to that, and it turns out Psalm 3 was written during the time when Absolom, David’s son, rallied the people against him. He slandered his father and built an army that tried to usurp the throne. A scandal. A betrayal. Culminating in a devastating heartbreak.

In Psalm 3, David shares the weight of a host of dissension, divided loyalties, and betrayal, and the voice of the nay-sayers was strong. “Many are saying of my soul, there is NO deliverance for him in God.” I feel like there is a little bit of mocking in the hurtful conclusion of David’s “many.” Not only had they lost confidence in him, but their words made it seem like his faith in God was foolish. That his own trust and reliance on God to deliver was misplaced. No wonder he despaired in verse one that his enemies had increased and were “rising up” against him. I can’t help but think that it wasn’t just the advancing armed soldiers that made him despair, but the rising tide of a fickle and vocal “tribe.”

“But…” such a nice word to read sometimes. A shift, a change in thinking, a corrected course, a moment of truth. Verse three is the turning point that inspired my lettering this week.

“But You, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory and the One who lifts my head.”

A shield about me… just in the nick of time, though it’s always been there. Never daunted, never moving, never swayed by opinions, never thwarted by doubts or dismay. My glory… my honor and renown. My true status update. A position against which no gossip or infamy or self-doubt can stand. The One who lifts my head… above the crowd and the distractions, above the nay-sayers and the shade-casters. Above. Above every rising tide that would sweep us away from the peace and hope found in Him.

A turning point, indeed. A shielded place where David found rest and his own rising.

In the next few verses, he describes the peace found in this new perspective. He slept. Wow, let’s not underestimate the significance of this little fact. “I lay down and slept; I awoke, for the Lord sustains me.” No fretting, no restlessness, no wakeful worrying and wrestling. Resting in the shield God provided, he could rise with a new confidence to say “I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people who have set themselves against me.”

To rest in God and to focus on Him shields us from a world that seems to steal our confidence, our hope, and our joy. Even when that “world” includes people we thought we could count on. God’s desire toward us is to lift our heads, to draw our attention above the noise and nay-sayers to the true source of rest and rising… Himself.

I ended my reading of this psalm just as David did. Faith reaffirmed. Confidence restored. Rising. By verse eight, what started out as naysayers declaring there is no deliverance, ends with the confident reality that “salvation belongs to the Lord.” Come what may. Regardless of how the world may encroach, or which doubters may speak loudest. God is the author and owner of our rising. Amen.