Do you ever find yourself in tough circumstances, under attack, people out to get you?
David took on Goliath the Philistine Giant with his slingshot and a stone and killed him, defeating the Philistine champion and causing the Philistine army to be defeated. He was the hero, on the up.
Roll forward maybe a couple of years and David is seized by a vengeful group of Philistines. David writes about this time in Psalm 56.
Many of us can relate to at least some of his experiance, being hounded, slandered, attacked, afraid, people twisting his words against him, plotting against him, being spied upon and watched closely for opportunities to harm him.
Despite the evidence of Davids situation appearing to say that God had forgotten him and did not care about what was happening to him this was not true for David and when we are in tough circumstances it is not true for us. God cares so much about our sorrow that he collects our tears in a bottle! Psalm 56:8 "You (God) keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book." Awsome!
What can we learn from David's response when people were out to get him?
Mercy - He asked God for Mercy, for God to respond to his situation in an unexpected and unmerited way.
Trust - He actively put his trust in God, trusting him to keep his promises even when his circumstances gave him reason to doubt.
Praise - He praised God for things promised even though they had not yet happened.
Compared wisely - Rather than compare the power of those out to get him against his own abilities he compared them to God's power.
Asked - He asked God to intervene. Do we actually ask God for his intervention or do we keep trying to get through on our own?
Afterwards - To often we let other things take first place in our lives once we are out of the tough times, rather than put God first. In his time of trouble David made promises to God, once the tough circumstances were over he recognised he needed to keep those promises and he sought to do life in God's presence.
