Psalm 6

This Psalm finds David at a low point. He is ailing, weary, depressed. We’re given no context for his situation, though it seems he is expecting wrath and discipline, so we can assume he is feeling the need to repent from some sinful action. Exaggeration is common in the psalms to really emphasis the emotion, so it is possible that the physical symptoms David describes are just an example of that, or it could also be that he is feeling sick with guilt, that his sin has caused a physical reaction.

He is calling out for grace and mercy. He appeals to God’s goodness by using the covenant name, LORD, Yahweh. He calls on God’s steadfast love. He is in the depths of despair, and yet is confident of God’s answer. In an effort to rid himself of the enemies who are tormenting him, he sends them away, declaring: “The LORD has heard the sound of my weeping. The LORD has heard my plea; the LORD accepts my prayer.” Even though his situation may not have changed yet, David knows that he has been heard, and he knows that God is just and will respond to his cry.

Sin has consequences in our lives, but repentance restores our relationship with God, because He is merciful and will always forgive us when we ask. He always answers when we call to him. We can come to Him with confidence, even when times are tough, and know that we will be heard. We can trust in His steadfast love and trust Him for justice.

Psalm 5

This is one of the many Psalms which includes the instruction: “For the choirmaster” (or director of music in other translations). It is thought that these Psalms were meant to be included in the collection of works for use in Israel’s worship services, making it an act of corporate worship. For some reason it often surprises me to see this annotation, as I get used to thinking of the Psalms as personal prayers and songs, and individual crying out to God in different situations. While that is definitely true of many of the Psalms, it is striking how many are labelled as congregational, reminding us that our faith is not an individual affair, but one requiring fellowship for growth, in the good times and the bad.

Psalm 5 is titled “Lead me in Your righteousness” in my Bible, and this is David’s prayer throughout the Psalm. He addresses his application first of all to the LORD, using God’s covenant name, which emphasises His goodness, but in the next verse David calls on “my King and my God” to highlight God’s authority over him and His greatness. David has an attitude of humility – he is making the right sacrifices and waiting for God to act. He wants to be right with God. He knows what displeases God – boasting, evil, deceit, bloodthirstiness – and he knows that God’s unfailing and abundant love has made it possible for us to be right with Him. He also recognises that the right response to God’s holiness is fear and respect.

The next verse (8) intrigued me: “Lead me, O LORD, in your righteousness/because of my enemies/make your way straight before me” – why because of his enemies? Was it because they were trying to lead him astray, or he was worried about his anger towards them leading him to sin? Or was it so that they would have no ammunition against him, as he would be living God’s way? Or could it be because he wanted to show them a better way to live? As I thought about this, I realised that though these are different interpretations of the same phrase, they actually don’t contradict each other – any or all of these thoughts could be accurate. David may very well have mixed emotions and motives when thinking about those who stood against him! What is clear, though, from verse 10, is that David is handing the situation over to God, and letting Him deal with them, instead of trying to seek his own vengeance. This is a pattern we see time and again in the Psalms – let God be God and let go of our own agenda.

The Psalm ends with a promise of the blessings for those who seek refuge in God, and seek after righteousness – they will be made righteous and they will be protected and favoured, and their response will be to praise.

So, what’s the takeaway from this today? First, to take requests to God freely, appealing to His goodness but with a right respect for His authority. Second, remember that God is holy and hates sin – be repentant, be humble, and seek after righteousness. Third, trust Him for justice when others seek to hurt you, but also by your actions show them the way of grace and righteousness. Finally, remember God’s unfailing love and seek refuge in Him.

Psalm 4

This has been one of my favourite Psalms for a long time, partly because it was recited in a song on a favourite album when I was a teenager, so I knew it word for word at one point.

I love the assurance with which David speaks of God. He knows God will answer, he doesn’t doubt that in the slightest. Even when people are trying to bad mouth him, or doubt his God, he knows, is certain that God hears him. He knows that God is the source of his righteousness (v1), his joy (v7) and his security (v8). He also knows that God will bring justice, that those spreading lies about him will be shown to be deceitful and that he is set apart by God as righteous.

There is also some very wise advice in verses four and five. “Be angry, and do not sin” (or, “In your anger, do not sin” as the NIV puts it). A few weeks ago a good friend of mine was in a situation where he got so angry he was about ready to punch someone who was really winding him up. I have never seen him so angry. And he walked away. He let someone else make the peace and he went off by himself to calm down. He did not let his anger control him. He wasn’t wrong to get angry, but he would have been wrong to act out of his anger. In Ephesians 4v26, Paul quotes this verse and takes it a little bit further: he instructs us not to go to bed angry, to always try to make peace within ourselves before the sun goes down. This action of letting go of what has wound us up is another way of letting God be God, and trusting Him to make things right.

We don’t have to make sacrifices in the way they did in the Old Testament, but there are sacrifices we need to make to help us be right with God (v5). Letting go of things that anger or upset us and choosing to forgive is one way. Last week someone upset me and I really wanted to get them back by doing the same thing to them that they had done to me, so they would know how it had felt. Instead I chose to do something nice for them, and they came and thanked me and I was so glad I had chosen helping instead of hurting, as that only leads to a cycle of pain and revenge.

In choosing to follow God, we have to give up a lot, Jesus asks His disciples repeatedly to leave their homes and security and to follow Him, assuring them that they will face many trials and persecution along the way. There have been many times in my life where all I could do was cling onto the slivers of faith and just trust and hope that God would pull me through, and He always does. David finishes off the Psalm with the assurance that God will give him rest and security. We may not have it easy when we follow God, but we know that He is with us through everything and is working for our good, and it is so worth it.

When I think about sacrifice, I am reminded of that amazing quote from Jim Elliot, a man who put is faith into action and was killed trying to share the gospel with the Aucas in Ecuador in the 1950s. He said: “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

Psalm 3

Psalm 3 gives us a spotlight on a really low point in David’s life. The story behind the Psalm is in 2 Samuel 15, though the scene is set four chapters earlier when David sins by committing adultery and murder (chapter 11), and God makes it clear there are going to be consequences (chapter 12) – lesson 1: whenever we go against God’s ways, even though He forgives us in His mercy, there will always be repercussions to our actions.

The first consequence is that the child born from the affair dies, but things soon get worse for David. In chapter 13, when one of David’s sons, Amnon, rapes his half-sister Tamar. David is angry about this (verse 21) but doesn’t do anything about it, so Tamar’s brother Absalom takes matters into his own hands, and kills Amnon, and then flees. Eventually David is persuaded to let Absalom return to Jerusalem, who appears to make peace with his father (chapter 14).

But Absalom soon starts to undermine his father’s rule and eventually leads a power coup, and David is forced to flee, and this is the situation in which David writes this Psalm.

I can’t imagine what it must have felt like for David to be betrayed by his own son, particularly knowing that in some way it was a result of bad choices he had made. His response in this Psalm, however, is so challenging to me as he turns to God in his anguish but not in anger. He repeatedly refers to God as LORD, using God’s covenant name (Yahweh) that emphasises God’s goodness.

When his enemies are trying to tell him that God has left him, David calls out to God for protection, because he knows that the LORD has always responded in the past to his cries for help (v4) He was able to rest, despite everything, because God sustained him. He develops this idea into hope for the future, he knows that God has helped him, so he has no need to fear, however many enemies he is facing, because God has answered him whenever he called. He calls out to God, trusting Him for justice to be done to his enemies.

Often those without faith can try to talk us out of ours. We need to always remember what God has done for us in the past, as this knowledge will sustain us and help us to keep trusting Him for our present and our future. God is faithful and will answer when we call to Him. He is the source of justice and salvation.

David’s story is at times victorious and at times heartbreaking, for me this is one of the saddest chapters in his life. His failures as a father and the consequences of his actions make for difficult reading, and remind us that while we can learn a lot from Biblical characters we must remember that they were human and usually screwed up pretty badly at times (apart from Jesus, who, being fully God as well as fully human, was awesome and is literally the perfect role model). But this is a great lesson for us too – David, despite all his screw-ups, is still referred to as being ‘a man after God’s own heart’. What we see throughout the Psalms is that whatever happens in his life, good or bad, David is constantly turning to God, whether in anguish or in praise, or sometimes both. Life is messy, often as a result of our own actions, and we need to learn from David to take all our mess to a loving and powerful LORD and God who will always answer when we call to Him.