Psalm 3: Where to Turn?
One of the great characters of the Bible is named David. It is often assumed that the Bible contains nice stories of upstanding, moral individuals who lived as friends of God, and who, because of their inherent goodness, were blessed by God. Blessing, as it commonly understood, is defined as a difficulty free, easy, prosperous life. Good people receive good things from God because of their goodness. We tell their stories to be inspired, to find comfort, or to discover principles on which we can base our lives. For those who haven’t read the Bible, they think of it like Aesop’s Fables, a collection of legends, stories, jokes, and proverbs relaying human wisdom, instructing us in how to be good so that we, too, can be blessed, as blessing is conventionally understood.
Those who have read the Bible, particularly those who have considered Psalm 3 and the story behind it, know these assumptions to be false. Life doesn’t always go well for those who are seeking to be in relationship with God. Psalm 3:1-8, a short prayer, says:
Lord, how many are my foes!
How many rise up against me!
Many are saying of me,
“God will not deliver him.”But you, Lord, are a shield around me,
my glory, the One who lifts my head high.
I call out to the Lord,
and he answers me from his holy mountain.I lie down and sleep;
I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.
I will not fear though tens of thousands
assail me on every side.Arise, Lord!
Deliver me, my God!
Strike all my enemies on the jaw;
break the teeth of the wicked.From the Lord comes deliverance.
May your blessing be on your people.
David, the writer, composed this prayer while being pursued by his oldest son, Absalom, who had orchestrated a coup. David’s situation does not fit the convention of blessedness, the surface-level conception of the Bible’s heroes and heroines. If David is a friend of God, why is he in such trouble? Why all this chaos? Why such strife?
It turns out David remains human. His life has problems. After ascending the throne, David does not become an unassailable, divine, transcendent figure. He is a warrior, poet, and shepherd. But while king, he commits adultery. He orchestrates a murder. He fails as a father. His family unravels. We learn this as 2 Samuel unfolds. These are not his only missteps. The missteps are not the sum of David’s story. David does good things, too. When David makes mistakes, he receives God’s rebuke, coming both directly on the heels of God’s decrees of judgment, and indirectly, through the human tragedy that ensues.
What distinguishes David is his heart’s instinct when faced with hardship. David does not curse God. He does not turn from God. He does not reject God. He cries out to God. He prays. He repents. He admits wrong. He laments, grieves, and mourns. He remains a person of faith. He trusts God, not only when he is superficially “blessed.” He trusts God when he is tried, persecuted, rebuked, corrected, and plunged into suffering. David displays the human relationship with the divine, not only when life is easy, but when it is hard.
If only we could have such faith.
I have been reminded recently that the Abrahamic faiths, particularly Judaism and Christianity, have a long tradition of arguing with God. In these traditions, people of faith have cried out to God, questioned God’s decisions or supposed lack of action, naming God’s distance or disregard while in plight. They’ve said, “Hey! Are you paying attention over here? Where are you? Why are you doing this? What are you up to? Are you active here? Have you forgotten me? Are you with me? Will you help me? Do you care?”
But that is not all they have said. They’ve said, “You protect me. You sustain me. You know what my opponents are saying. You see what is happening here. You hear my cries. You answer me. You lift me up. Even though I am far outnumbered, if you are with me I am, in the end, unassailable. If I die, you’ll vindicate me. You have the power to destroy my oppressors. You are the source of deliverance. Your blessing is up to you. May you give it. I’ll keep asking for it. Don’t ignore me. I’ll persist. I trust you. I will trust you when times are good. I trust you when times are bad. You’re God. I don’t know what you’re up to, not fully. But I know you hear me. You’ll keep hearing from me. Raise me up. Give me a reason to fill the air with your praises in this lifetime. Show your glory. I want a story to tell. Don’t just sit there on your mountain. Come down. Act. Don’t delay. Even if you do delay, still yet, I’ll praise you.”
Relationship with God is a tussle. This posture is evocative of Jacob, who wrestled with God, and asked for God’s name and for God’s blessing. God gave Jacob a new name, a limp, a blessing, and his life. The angel of the Lord, whom Jacob identifies as God, does not disclose a name, but in giving Jacob a name, reveals something of his identity. He gave Jacob a new understanding of the human relationship with God, as a people who wrestle with God, and live. He then delivered Jacob, now named Israel, from Esau the next day. And then he worked through Israel’s line, in keeping with the divine promise.
Psalm 3 is a model that teaches us how to cry out to God. We acknowledge our difficulty, name our problem, describe our situation, call on God’s character, testify to God’s strength, rest in God’s power, and petition God to take action. We acknowledge God as the source of our salvation, our deliverance, and then trust in God’s grace. We wait upon the Lord.
David sought deliverance from Absalom, and Absalom’s coalition. God heard David’s cry and responded. We do not know this from Psalm 3, but from elsewhere in the biblical record.
David had great cause for confidence in God. God had protected David from the lion and the bear, he had placed David in the court of a king, he had given David the strength to prevail over a giant, he had placed David at the head of a conquering army, he had elevated David from shepherd to king, he had increased his wealth and the number of descendants, he had brought peace to Israel, and promised David an enduring, everlasting throne. David had great cause for confidence in God.
We have greater reasons for confidence. God’s promises to David have been fulfilled. For Christian people, one greater than David has come. Jesus, the fulfillment of God’s promise to David, has appeared. Jesus has delivered us, not only from our troubles, but from the power of sin, evil, and death. When we place our confidence in him, God’s blessing rests upon us. Our salvation is found in him. He has made us part of a body, the body of Christ. Our deliverance is not situational. It is eternally secure, established beyond our circumstance by Christ and his cross. Because our faith, and our salvation, has a firm foundation in Christ, we can confidently ask God for help. Cry out. Demand an answer. That’s what people of faith do. That’s what people of faith have: God’s ear, God’s help, and a God-grounded everlasting hope.
You may not find the resolution you are looking for, at least not at the time you ask for it. But you will find that you have a God who is with you, who is for you, who is your deliverer, who has drawn near to you, who is Christ, who lives in you, through faith. Romans 8:31-32 says, “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” If God has given us such a great deliverance, we can ask for smaller deliverances. God is mighty to save.
Even if ten thousand assail you on every side, you rest secure. Romans 8:34-35 says, “Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?” Paul’s answer, in Romans 8:37: “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
Romans 8:38-39 concludes Paul’s assertion that we have been delivered, that we are secure in Christ Jesus, that we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, that we will be resurrected (like the Son of God, by the Holy Spirit’s power), with these stirring words, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
When David cried out to God for deliverance from Absalom, he had hope. We have more. Christ is risen from the dead. Deliverance has come. Our hope is eternal. Whatever comes, whatever the response, in the near term, or on the far horizon of history, in him, we are blessed.
Book Notes
One of the more fascinating insight’s I’ve gained from James Davison Hunter and Paul Nedelisky’s Science and the Good: The Tragic Quest for the Nature of Morality is that the prevailing scientific approaches to morality are emotive and utilitarian, rooted in sentiment and a preconceived notion of the good. I think this applies to popular approaches to morality as well. The result: much popular ethical reflection amounts to moral justification rather than moral reasoning. We begin at the conclusion and work backwards, rather than begin at first principles, and work forward.
Why do we do this? How did this happen? David Hume, Charles Darwin, John Stuart Mill, and Jeremy Bentham each played a part in where we are today. Their names won’t emerge in our everyday conversation, but their ideas concerning skepticism, moral sentiment, evolutionary theory, human nature, the good, and happiness are everywhere. Public conversation regarding what ought to be is derived from what is, even if the is in question is a nascent popular opinion or preference, a fad, an ideavirus.
I am a Christian person. Thus, when I engage in moral reasoning, I seek to do so as a person of faith, thinking through moral questions from within my tradition. I have particular convictions with respect to Christianity. These include an account of divine revelation, truth, human nature, God, and the like. I have a moral and theological tradition from which to draw, and a sacred text which establishes parameters of discourse. I believe human relationship with the divine is dynamic, which means I believe we interact with God through prayer, argument, experience, and conversation, and that truth is not only arrived at by logic, but is spiritually discerned. I also hold an older, Hebraic view of the human person. While I hold that there are different dimensions of the self, including interplay within our social context, the mind, the emotions, and the will, I believe we come before God as a whole person and are commanded to seek God with our whole selves, not only with the intellect, but with our heart and strength.
My biblical and theological convictions serve as grounds for first principles in moral reasoning. I see through these convictions, and argue from them. Because my set of convictions includes an account of human nature that assumes we can be wrong, and often have been proven to be wrong with respect to certain questions, I seek to maintain humility even with respect to the convictions I hold firmly. This means I am open to reexamining my convictions when the evidence demands it. If my convictions are shown to be false, I admit error and make corrections. If my convictions rest on a shaky set of arguments, and better arguments are available, I shore up the foundation. I work at it. If I believe my convictions are sound, I move forward on the basis of those convictions, boldly and with courage. The work is ongoing. It is an open project. Discoveries are there to be made, some, eternal discoveries. There is a rock upon which our feet can be set, with God’s help, and whereupon we can stand (Psalm 40:2; Matthew 7:24-29).
I began reading Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities. I made my way through about a third of the novel on the Fourth of July. The novel is satirical. It is tragic. It is heartbreaking. It is American. It is New York. It is political. It is a sad commentary on human nature. It is wonderfully written. It is brilliant.
Sights and Sounds
Still watching Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005-2008). There are sixty two episodes total. David and I have progressed a little further; I haven’t watched any more episodes this week because he is away at camp.
The long holiday weekend provided time and space to watch several more movies: DC League of Super-Pets (2022) on family movie night, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005), The Sum of All Fears (2002), and Eraser (1996).
I had never watched The Sum of All Fears. It was obviously in production before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The film reminded me, powerfully, of the complexity of global politics, the power of ideology, the fragility of life, the horrors of modern explosive technology, the fog of battle, the reality of human evil, the importance of the truth, the difficulty in discerning lies, the usefulness of history (and scholarship), and the pressures of leadership. It’s a good movie.
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BAS
P.S. - Worth the stop if you’re ever through Centerville, Texas.
