When fear turns fierce and foundations feel destroyed, the counsel comes easy: flee like a bird to your mountain. In Psalm 11 David meets that advice head-on, asking how anyone can say it to his soul when he already takes refuge in the Lord.
Do we only come to God when everything’s falling apart—when we’re without a prayer and just need a favor? In Psalm 10, it’s clear God is our Father, not just our favor giver, but too often we approach him only as the latter.
Music has a way of dealing with all sorts of struggles, even the ones that come while trying to create with the gifts God gave. You end up feeling like heaven is being forced to marry hell, wondering if God is near or far as you wait. Psalm 10 meets us in exactly that cry.
You arrive early at the restaurant and order an iced tea while waiting for a friend whose advice you desperately need. One refill comes, then another, until the condensation has left the table damp and the agreed time is long past. An hour and a half later, you leave more dejected than when you arrived. Psalm 13 asks the same question that fills that silence: How long, O Lord?
The wicked bend their bows, the foundations feel destroyed, and everyone around David has a reasonable-sounding answer: flee. Psalm 11 plants its feet against that pressure, asking whether the upheaval surrounding the righteous actually means what it looks like it means.
A folding map only works if you already know where you are. Enough wrong turns, and you're stuck staring at it with no idea how to find yourself—let alone get back on course. Psalm 89 asks what God's promises do for those of us who aren't the Hannahs and Davids, who look at the map and go the wrong way.
We begin a new series in the Psalms tonight, looking at David’s lament in Psalm 12. What happens when we feel like evil has triumphed and whatever good we do is fruitless?
