Psalm 35.
David asks God to find for him against his enemies, those who seek to shame him and kill him and say to his soul that God is his salvation.
When the Lord does that David will rejoice in him, delight in his salvation and praise him. David complains that people he prayed for return evil for his good.
When he is rescued, David promises to praise God publicly and daily, and he looks for others to praise God because of his rescue..”
David does not doubt the Lord.
He wonders why he’s silent and far away sometimes (22) but he looks to him and trusts him for deliverance and salvation.
That depth of faith takes my breath away.
I’d love to be where David is spritiually but I don’t want to go through the trials that got him there. I don’t want to be hunted by my father in law. I don’t want to be always on the run fearing for my life.
David didn’t have to turn to the Lord for repeated rescue, but he did. He had a heart for God.
When I was young, I learned to have a heart for myself.
I believed the world and everything in it was there for my pleasure.
My father’s constant admonition of “Do your best” I changed to “Get the best.” Instead of demanding the best from myself I demanded it from others for myself.
This led to a lot of complaining and whining. It also blocked my observation of my father, who did do his best and served so many hundreds of others that, to my astonishment, over a thousand of them showed up at his funeral.
I endured a lot of suffering that led up to my conversion.
And I complained about it.
The suffering didn’t turn me to God. God’s very clear call did that.
Once I turned to God for my obedience and salvation, I began to understand the role of suffering in my life.
The sins I committed just before my first wife died and then added to after her death led to the complete collapse of my life.
In that long period of rejection, loss and despair, I didn’t turn to God with David’s heart.
I angrily complained to God. Why didn’t I have the life I wanted?
I still didn’t focus on God’s salvation, on trusting him to get me through, and to praise him. I didn’t do my best in any way, shape or form.
My life depressed me because I didn’t understand it and couldn’t interpret it.
God was there but he was not the centre of my life the way he was for David.
That truly began to change when I came to Wooridle with Pastor Kim’s focus on interpreting my life through Scripture.
To do that, God had to be at the centre.
My eyes began to learn the habit of looking to God.
It’s a longer, harder process than I thought it would be.
Many are the battles, but today’s passage shows me the change in myself I can look forward to with God’s grace of perseverance.
Lord, contend against my enemies and give me the courage to praise you to others for your salvation.
