Psalm 142 - Look and see

Psalm 142 - Look and see

Read: Psalm 142 vs 1-7

When it comes to reading a book or watching a TV programme, different people like different things. Some people like things that have lots of mystery to them, twists and turns, with surprises along the way. I actually like things that are quite straightforward; here’s the ‘good guys, here’s the bad guys’, and by the end of the show everything has been worked out, no lose ends, no unanswered questions. 

As we get closer to the end of the book of Psalms (today we are reading number 142) it would be very reasonable to assume, or at least to hope, that things would be close to ‘getting sorted out’ as the book nears its ends. You imagine that early ‘problems’ in the book (the presence of intimidating enemies, inner anxiety and a sense of personal vulnerability) would in some ways be, by now, behind the writers. When it comes to Psalms written by David (this is one of them) you would almost think that by now he would have reached a place of mature, steady faith, where he would be in a much better place that in some of the earlier songs / prayers that he wrote. 

But none of these things turn out to be the case. The opening words of this psalm are as raw as any of the psalms that we have read:

‘I cry aloud to the LORD: I lift up my voice to the LORD for mercy.

I pour out before Him my complaint; before him I tell my trouble.’

Wouldn’t it be lovely if the life of faith got easier as time went by? Wouldn’t it be great if we had a bigger sense of everything working out and fitting in, as our lives go by? Psalm 142 reminds us that in the Christian life we never mature beyond crying to God for mercy, confessing before Him our need and seeking in Him our refuge. This is the shape of life ‘in the land of the living’ (vs 5) all the way, until one day, when we are safely home. 

Prayer: LORD you are my portion in this land of the living. As I grow older help me to trust You more and more each new day. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.