Psalm 3 for January 3

1 Lord, my enemies have multiplied.  Even my own family attacks me.  Many are saying that God has abandoned me and that You will not help me at all.  I consider that possibility.

3 But then I think about You.  You have not abandoned me.  You have always been my shield.  You are my glory.  The best thing about my life is You.  When my eyes have fallen into despair you lift my face into Your eyes.  You lift my head.  4 So, with my voice I will cry to You.  You hear me and You answer me from Heaven.  I will consider that.  

5 I will lay down in sleep with You standing guard and wake up with You still there.  You sustain me.  6  I will not be afraid of a dark army of ten thousand that surrounds me.  For You surround them.  

7 Arise O Lord; save me O my God!  You will fight for me and shatter the pride of those who are evil, bringing all their nefarious plans to ruin.  8 Salvation belongs to You, Lord God.  May Your blessing be upon all those whose hearts are Yours.

To me this Psalm brings great comfort.  The truth is that David who wrote this Psalm brought a lot of the trouble he mentions in it on himself with bad choices he made.  His choices resulted in even in his own son turning on him and hunting him down like a criminal.  But when David sees the reality that he is in he runs to God.  He remembers that God is a God of mercy and that the Lord will not abandon him.  Even in defeat David knows God is there.  That God has stood by him his whole life.  That when He is down the Lord lifts David’s face into eyes of mercy.  God will ultimately turn sorrow into joy.  God will turn defeat into victory and failure into eventual joy.  

So when David is tempted to despair he cries to God in honest, gut wrenching prayer.  And David knows that God hears and that eventually God will answer.  So even if a dark army then thousand strong surrounds him David will sleep knowing that God is standing guard. David knows that God is bigger than any army and that his Mighty God is bigger than any manmade army.  He knows that men who stand against God and what is good will fail and trip over their pride and be defeated.  Evil always ultimately loses.  God will save us from this world.  We need to hang on to the Truth and put our faith in God.  Not man.  For salvation belongs to our God.