Pleas For Help

Psalm 56, 120, 140, 141, & 142

There is something about words from someone who has been here.  Something weighty that adds to the depth and breadth of those words. Their words of courage and hope are not empty or frivolous.  They are words that have cost a lot and become very precious.  

Words spoken as encouragement during trials.

Words of comfort in the midst of sorrow.

Words of mercy and peace in deliverance.

But what do we do with words of lament and pleas for help, and for justice?

These words are hard for us to articulate. 

Difficult to put into words, to give a voice to, and fill them with sound. 

Words that are also difficult to hear, difficult to respond to. 

But as anyone who has struggled knows,

Weeping people really just need someone to listen. 

And listening quietly is fine.

I see you!  

I hear you! 

In this grouping of Psalms we hear David’s fear and his pleas. 

Ps 140 : Rescue me!!  Keep me!!  Protect me!! Hear me!!

Ps 141: Come quickly!!  Hear me!!  Listen!!  Rescue me!!  Set me free!!

Such urgency and deep anguish.  

These are the words of David. 

He really has been there.  

The praise words he also writes are so much sweeter

Because we know how deep his fear has been,

How close to death,

The anxiety of hiding, of being pursued, of being found.

Fear for his very life.

Ps 56:3 “When I am afraid

I will trust in you. 

4 In God, whose word I praise

In God I trust;

I will not be afraid

What can mortal man do to me?”

I wonder if these words would be a mantra that David might repeat to himself in darkest hours of night. 

Ps 56:8 “Record my lament;

List my tears on your scroll,

Are they not in your record? “

Ps 142: 6 “Listen to my cry,

For I am in desperate need.

Rescue me from those who pursue me,

For they are too strong for me.

7Set me free from my prison

That I may praise your name.

Then the righteous will gather about me because of your goodness to me.”

Ps 56:9 “Then my enemies will turn back

When I call for help.

By this I know that God is FOR me!!

13For you have delivered me from death,

And my feet from stumbling,

That I may walk before God in the light of life.”

He bears testimony to life.

To living.

To hope.

To coming out of the other side of the storm.

When David urges us to call on God in our deepest need, it is only because God showed up for him in such a real way.  “By this I know that God is FOR me!”