Have you ever driven right into the sun on an afternoon with perhaps a dirty windshield? Perhaps the Christian journey can be described just like this – an unclean windshield, with impurities and imperfections, travelling towards light, pursuing light.
I find in my job that some are more critical of you than you would really like – especially when you are trying to build up others and make life enjoyable. Particularly when you are giving it your all and others can still see faults or things that perhaps threaten them or make them feel a little inadequate. Sometimes you can almost feel like they are gunning for you – and when you have an element of being a people-pleaser, that does not go down well. Add a little perfectionism in there and you have yourself a deadly mix of potentially soul-crushing and attitude-changing material.
In Psalm 56 I think it’s this is sort of message that David starts with. He highlights the pride of others and the egos and shame as something that is quite prevalent and destructive. He shows how destructive this can be for humanity.
Think, if Adam and Eve were created in disharmony from the very start then we would be in a lot more trouble than we ever needed or wanted. God created people for relationship with Him and with themselves and He also created us for unity and harmony and obedience to follow Him. Along the way though, things got a little messy – this was all stuffed up. Desire came in the way and ambition and pride and egos were born to feed disunity, disharmony and ultimately create fear amongst people.
See, David was simply a shepherd boy to start off with. Along the way to becoming a King, David had some trouble with Saul. Saul was his master and Saul was attempting to kill him. So as a result, David fleas the town only to run to the nearby town where the villagers (the Phillys) were enemies of David’s peeps. Not only that but he also had to contend with a giant as well. Talk about out of the frying pan into the fire!
I don’t know if you have had one of these experiences before, but it is a little confronting – you almost start to believe it is you. I had a situation a while ago where this happened and it was almost like ‘what was coming next?’ – the rule of three for the superstitious. I’d obviously upset someone about something that I was doing and they felt it was something that they should be doing. Then to step out of that and into something that felt 10 times worse was like “ouch”. Your confidence, pride and ego take quite a hit – especially if the other person feels as if they’ve won (and if anyone knows me well enough, I don’t like losing but I also don’t like others feel like they’ve beaten me if I recognise I have lost!).
David covers this in a way with Psalm 56.
- First, he covers the base that some opposition is coming his way. He recognises that he can’t please everyone, even though he may try really hard at it. He understands human desire and that people can feel threatened when their perspective says they aren’t as good as them. They go into defence mode and shutdown people who are “better” than them simply by attacking them, conspiring against them, plotting against them and pursuing them.
- Secondly, he recognises that fear has a role to play. He knows when people come for him it isn’t going to feel good. Imagine your boss is not just unhappy with you, but wants to kill you. You’d be fertilizing yourself I reckon. Things that are thrown at you aren’t always going to make you feel great, especially when others feel threatened by you.
- Thirdly, he recognises pain and heartache. David describes tears here – obviously a sign of mentally and emotionally being drained. Imagine serving someone and them turning on you – you would be a little devastated. My class was reading through a text on Ancient Roman Slaves who were generally captured from other empires, whipped and flogged, put into battles as entertainment for the soldiers and fed to lions when they were perceived to be too old. Not only that, they got all the rubbish jobs and spent a lot of their time serving others (not necessarily by choice). Some of these were devoted slaves. How difficult would it be mentally to endure this and still remain devoted though?? Unreal!
- Fourthly, he understood God’s plan for him. He had sent him there and he could trust that God was with him in this. See, trust supersedes fear. Ever seen that trust exercise where people lean back and are caught by their partners? Imagine if one person deliberately dropped their partner. Not only would it be funny but it would also send a message through the group that they needed to fear being dropped.
- Finally, he understood that God was worthy to be praised for the hope he had found. Have you ever had that family figure that you can’t wait to give a present to? Generally that person is trustworthy and someone you respect and look up to. David understood that God had planned something for him, that he had given him the strength and the ability to do it, and that the path he needed to follow lead to life full of hope, trust and positivity rather than fear and rejection that others may have or convey to you. The reality is, sometimes people manage to let us down, even the ones who we really trust. Take David for instance. Saul was his boss.
I was once told the story of what having God in your life is like. The person told me that it was like buying the best car you could think of (brand new, whizz-bang) and giving the keys to God and sitting in the backseat and allowing him to take you for a drive. When we place our trust in people, God is given the backseat and we begin to drive, often to places God does not want us to go. He knows we are often scared, but sometimes I think that is give us not only things to learn but also to give us light and shade in life so well can determine what is good and what is tough. Then we are able to appreciate the good things much more and appreciate the tough as well for the things we have learned from those experiences.
– Michael Dunn