Where do you turn when your world is falling apart around you? Dark skies are on the horizon, the tests came back positive, there’s more month than money, the relationship is a dumpster fire? Turn to God. Now, God is not a magic genie or a cosmic PEZ machine who will give you whatever you ask for. God is not an ogre, the bogeyman out to get you. He is not the God of, “yaddah yaddah, blah blah blah,” the God you can’t understand. He is not your higher power or “big man upstairs.” He is the God you can go to when you can’t go anywhere else.
In Psalm 5, David is in a rough spot and comes to God confident. He knows who His God is; is this your God? He is my God, my King, my LORD, God creator, high and mighty on the throne, lifted up. He is God who will save him, the Savior who died and rose and will return. He is the promise-making and promise-keeping God. He is the God worth waiting and watching for, the God worthy of sacrifice. David comes with words and voice, groaning and crying, pouring his heart out, leaving it all on the court, on the altar, at His feet. He says, “You hear my voice.” That is a powerful truth to remember when your life is a mess: come to God, and God hears your voice. Come to this God confident.
He also comes to God committed. It takes some commitment to come to the temple with your sacrifice and wait and watch for God, but here he raises the stakes, “turning the dial up to 11.” He enters the house, he bows, and is in fear of God. He humbly submits himself, “Lead me, Oh LORD, in your righteousness.” Knowing God and confidence in God leads to commitment to God. “Whatever it takes, Lord, you’re the boss.” But he doesn’t do this on his own, in his own strength, but, “through the abundance of Your steadfast love.” How much love? It is, “the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:18).” What kind of love? Steadfast, merciful, faithful, forgiving. Consider God’s love for the lost, God’s love for sinners, God’s love for the saved, God’s love for His children and bride (who are not perfect people) but they are saved and redeemed and paid for and bought through the precious blood and love of Christ. God’s love for you. It is God’s saving love for those who enter, those who bow, those who fear, those who want to be led – is this you? Are you committed to God?
David also comes comforted. He is in a hard place, kicked to the curb, under the bus, but he is confident, committed, and comforted. He takes refuge in God and rejoices and sings for joy in the midst of his troubles and sorrows. And God spreads His protection, blesses him, and covers him with favor like a shield. It’s good to run downstairs when the tornadoes of life hit, it’s good to cover the flowers when frost is coming. You can exult with joy, leap and be filled with joy and comfort in the hard times. Nothing in this world will give you more comfort or joy than Christ. There is no other source of lasting joy and comfort, when life is good or life is bleak. God guards and protects His people; are you one of His people? Find comfort and joy in Him.
In the midst of enemies and your hardships this season, come to God in prayer. Come confident, committed, and comforted. And He will meet you in your darkness.