1 O Lord my God, in you do I take refuge;
save me from all my pursuers and deliver me,
2 lest like a lion they tear my soul apart,
rending it in pieces, with none to deliver.
3 O Lord my God, if I have done this,
if there is wrong in my hands,
4 if I have repaid my friend with evil
or plundered my enemy without cause,
5 let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it,
and let him trample my life to the ground and lay my glory in the dust. Selah
The School Text (Plain Message)
It is fairly ironic that, in the last Psalm, David recognized the justice of his suffering and trouble… but appealed to God to spare him from the full weight of justice. Now in this Psalm, David is so sure that he is innocent that he welcomes God’s justice.
We don’t really know what David has been accused of, or by whom. The identity of “Cush the Benjamite” (in the prescript to this Psalm) is unknown. It is speculated that Cush could have been a loyal follower of King Saul, and that he had accused David of some sort of treason.
Whatever the case was, David felt sure that he was innocent of the charge against him. Though men were in pursuit of him, even to take his life (v. 1-2) he was so confident of his innocence before the Lord that he even invites God to aid his enemies in ending his life (v. 3-5).
This seems like a bold prayer, but it is also entirely appropriate that David should only plead for God’s help and protection if his own conscience was truly convinced of the rightness of his cause. It would be to invite calamity to attempt to ask the Lord for assistance in a cause that you knew was contrary to His character.
The Praise Text (Thanksgiving)
Praise the Lord that when our hearts are right before him, we can have such sure confidence in his providential care. It is true that God does not always prosper those who are innocent before Him. David had the additional assurance that God had already anointed him to be the next King of Israel. So unless he did something truly terrible to fall out of God’s favor, David could be supremely confident in the Lord’s protection. He knew God’s plan and could count on it.
The rest of us are not privy to God’s plans as David was. It could be God’s plan to walk us through suffering so that, in suffering, we might be of greater use to Him. But whatever the case, when we are walking rightly before God, we can be doubly sure that the path He places us on is the path He designed for us… and if we walk it well, he will honor us with those six glorious words, on the day we enter our rest, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
The Confessional Text (Penitence)
I find myself falling short of David’s example in two ways: I am very rarely so upright, in my own heart and thoughts, that I could approach the throne of God with this level of confidence in my own innocence; and even if I were so sure of my innocence, the boldness of David’s trust in the Lord is difficult for me to match.
At such a young age (if our speculations are right about when this was written) David possessed such a pure character, and such a depth of trust in God… it puts my own to shame. To top it all off, he wrote all these psalms down so that they were later an encouragement to the whole world. I lack his degree of innocence, his trust, and his devotion to preserve his meditations in writing. I am 37 upon writing this, and I am only now beginning to seriously make an effort to discipline myself in that last regard.
Perhaps beginning with the latter will help me to improve in the former.
The Prayer Text (Petition)
Lord,
Thank you that you have such good will toward us that we can place our trust in you so boldly and with such confidence. Please help me to walk with the uprightness that David possessed, that my confidence in you could increase as well.
You are our rock. When we stand on you, nothing can shake us. Give me the discipline to plant myself solidly on that firm foundation. And sustain me in this effort to preserve these thoughts in writing, if only for my family’s and my own edification, and your glorification.
Amen.
Steps On The Water 