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A FIXED HEART (III)
SATURDAY, APRIL 24
Psalm 57:1-5

Psalm 20:1-9

“I will cry unto God… that performeth

all things for me.”

A FIXED HEART (III)
David trusted in God’s might (vv 2-3). It was God’s mercy that gave David confidence that He would be inclined to show favour and pity towards a desperate fugitive. It is God’s mighty power which now settles his assurance that God will not only be willing, but able to act on his behalf.
In fact, it was God’s wise providence that had placed David in this seemingly precarious position: for this was the best school in which the boy-who-would-be-king could learn where his true security lay. While on the run, travelling the length and breadth of the land, encountering hostilities from all sides ‒ none but an omniscient, omnipotent God could ensure protection. It was during these years that David learned to “cry unto God most High” (v 2); until he was able to say, “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God” (Ps 20:7).
This trust in God’s might would serve him well in those years when he finally sat on the throne of Israel. The dangers and decisions of a fugitive, though pressing and immediate, would have been relatively uncontroversial and inconsequential, compared to the vastly greater pressures of kingship, when the future of an entire nation could potentially hang in the balance! Is it not the pattern of God’s wise providence sometimes to permit great difficulties to overtake us that we might learn to “stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD” (Exod 14:13)?
David trusted in God’s majesty (vv 4-5). His earthly circumstances were dire. Enemies surrounded, intent on causing him hurt and harm. Threats abounded on every side. Yet rather than look around and despair, David looked up ‒ he looked to God’s exalted majesty, and made that the centre of his hope. In other words, his confidence was in the fact that God’s glory was and always would be paramount: no power in all the universe could ever thwart the glory of God from being displayed. Since David had consecrated his life to God’s purpose, he was able to “be still,” knowing that God would certainly be “exalted among the heathen… exalted in the earth” (Ps 46:10).
THOUGHT: Do I hope in my own might, my own exaltation; or God’s?

PRAYER: “Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens” (Ps 57:5, 11)!

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