Psalm 54: Our Condition in Light of God's Character

Psalm 54

O God, save me by your name, and vindicate me by your might.

O God, hear my prayer; give ear to the words of my mouth.

For strangers have risen against me; ruthless men seek my life; they do not set God before themselves.

Selah

Behold, God is my helper; the Lord is the upholder of my life.

He will return the evil to my enemies; in your faithfulness put an end to them. With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to you; I will give thanks to your name, O LORD, for it is good. For he has delivered me from every trouble, and my eye has looked in triumph on my enemies.

The superscription (that little note in all caps before a Psalm begins, which is inspired, by the way) of this Psalm tells us that David wrote this Psalm when the Ziphites snitched on David and told Saul where he was (go read 1 Samuel 23:19ff). As we've been seeing in our study of 1 Samuel, Saul is jealous of David's fame and his future kingship and is trying to kill him. Thus, David runs away from Saul and seeks refuge. However, Saul keeps finding where he is, and David has to relocate. This is where we get many of David's lament Psalms, where he is calling upon the Lord for deliverance from his enemies. Today, we look at one of these Psalms.

Psalm 54 (posted above) struck me today with great wonder. In the first four verses of this Psalm, we find David crying out dearly to the Lord. David desires God to save him from the "ruthless men" who "seek his life," and from the "strangers" that have "risen against him." David is in a desperate state, and he knows that his only hope would be to call upon the God who can do something about his condition. He is desperate, broken, yearning, and weak.

But then something happens in the soul of David: he starts to behold his God. Between verses three and four of this Psalm, we see an interesting word: Selah. All of the Psalms we see were originally songs that would be sung, and thus the word "Selah" refers to an instrumental break in the music, possibly where the singers could ponder the words they have sung, or something like that. The struggle in interpretation is whether to consider selahs or not. They are in fact inspired, right smack dab in the middle of the Hebrew texts. Although many of them seem to occur randomly, against the interpretive flow of the Psalm, this one doesn't. This selah points to a dramatic shift in David's thinking, as he lifts his eyes from the depths of his condition to the heights of the character of the Lord.

David continues by shouting in exaltation: "Behold, God is my helper, the Lord is the upholder of my life" (v. 4). Although his condition is unbearable, David finds hope in a God who is both willing and able to help him, and thus he resolves in his mind that the Lord will rescue him from his condition: "He [the Lord] will return evil to my enemies" (v. 5). Furthermore, David moves from confidence to praise as he vows to offer a "freewill offering" to the Lord and give thanks to his name (v. 6).

Lastly, David concludes by reflecting upon the Lord's past deliverances: "For he [the Lord] has delivered me from every trouble" (v. 7a). Although many of these lament psalms end with a repeated petition for the Lord to save, David does no such thing here. Rather, he reflects upon the Lord's past deliverance; he meditates on God's past salvation on David's account. It seems as if David's struggle is almost forgotten by him now, since he is rather focused upon the Lord's character rather than his condition. As he meditates on the character of the Lord, David is only secondarily concerned with asking the Lord for deliverance. He is now primarily concerned with offering the Lord the praise due his name.

What we see here is an interesting pattern of lament. David starts off by bringing his requests to the Lord (1-3). He then meditates on the character of God (4-5) and is thus turned to praise (6-7). This ought to be the pattern of our lives as well. Often, amidst trials (such as, oh I don't know, a coronavirus quarantine), we get so focused on our condition that we forget of God's character. Rather than focusing on past deliverances of the Lord, we get so fixed on our condition that we complain, argue, gripe, and groan. Yet so often amidst this, we forget. We forget that the Lord has delivered us 10,000 times in the past. We forget of his goodness, his grace, and his beauty, all of which are to be our anchors in conditions such as these.

Let me encourage you this morning: write a lament. Start by blatantly describing all of your struggles to the Lord. Don't hide anything. Be demanding of the Lord if you have to--that's exactly what David did (v. 1). Yet once you are done with all of that, consider the character of the Lord. Write about how he has delivered you in the past, and apply that truth to your present condition. I bet that you'll be filled with pure praise to the Lord at the end of your lament rather than lament. Go ahead and try to prove me wrong, but I bet that when you observe your condition in light of the grace of God, you'll be more undone by the grace of God than undone with your condition.

"Turn my lament into a love song." - Some Rend Collective Song that randomly just started playing on my speaker that I thought was fitting for this devo.