Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 3-062 Sunday 30 Mar 2003

Psalms on Sundays Reading: Psalm 3 – A Cry on a Dark Morning

Recall the feelings which you struggled with at a time of deep family disappointment.

This is the first of fourteen psalms linked to historical episodes in David’s life, here his flight from Absalom.(2 Sam 15:13 – 17:24) We sense from the psalm the increasing number of David’s enemies (vs 1,6), popular contempt of David (v 2: ‘No help for him from God!’)(The Message) and David’s responsive anger (v 7) and concern for his people (v 8). Let the raw and sharp honesty of David’s shouts in the face of insurrection, treason and crocodile threats (‘Arise, O Lord!’) escape from the black covers of your Bible, disrupt your complacency in prayer and encourage you to speak out of _your_ heart to God also.

We may learn from the structure of this psalm, one of many individual laments in the psalter, a pattern for our own praying in tight spots. Such laments have six parts: address, complaint, trust, deliverance, assurance, praise. David does not conceal his fears (vs 1,2); but see how he deals with them. Sometimes our troubles are so central in our prayers that we rise more troubled than when we started. But David turns from his troubles in verse 3: ‘You are a shield… and assured of an answer (v 4), responds in verse 5: ‘_I_ lie down and sleep.’

Conclude your reflection today by pondering the phrase: ‘My Glorious One, who lifts up my head’ For when we look to the glorious Lord some of the shine of his radiance rubs on to us.(Ps 34:5; 2 Cor 3:13-18) And when we lift up our heads we may see the answer that is already on its way to us from God’s holy hill (v 4).

Prayer is not evasion or avoidance. Our Lord is the God ‘from whom no secrets are hidden’. But in prayer we lift our eyes to him who lifts our head.

– Howard Peskett

Copyright Scripture Union, 2003, Encounter with God

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