Unfinished

Psalm 57

I cry out to God Most High,

to God who will complete me.

He will send from heaven and save me…

God will send out his loyal love (Psalm 57:2,3).

David was hiding in a cave near the village of Adullam. Having played the fool in the Philistine camp he crept into a cold, dark hole in the ground to lament his shame (1 Samuel 22:1,2). 

We all make fools of ourselves now and then, each humiliation a reminder that vast parts of us are still unfinished. We are failed and flawed human beings and will be until God “completes us” (57:2, see also Philippians 1:6). 

But even as we decry our shame, as pleas for mercy tumble out of our mouths, God "sends out” a reminder of his loyal love (57:3). Though we are incomplete, all is well.  

Somewhere I read that Puritan women wore aprons that had two pockets: one contained a slip of paper inscribed with Luther's confession: “I am dust and ashes and full of sin”; the other with this assurance: “I am the apple of God’s eye” (Psalm 17:8).

Such is the paradox of grace.

David Roper

1.20.20 

The Band of Brothers

Psalm 54

“God is my helper; the Lord is among those who are with me" (Psalm 54:4).

According to the superscription, this poem was written "when the Ziphites  told Saul, 'Is not David hiding among us?'"

David and his mighty men heard that the Philistines were pillaging the farms and fields of Keilah. (Keilah was a small village in Judah, David's tribe. Ziph was the geographical region in which the city of Keilah was located.) 

So, "David and his men went to Keilah and fought with the Philistines...and struck them with a great blow. In this way, David saved the inhabitants of Keilah" (1 Samuel 23:1ff.)

The story continues: "Saul was told that David had come to Keilah," whereupon Saul mustered his army and marched to the city, thinking that he would trap David within it's walls.

Who informed on David? Well...the Ziphites, the inhabitants of Keilah, his friends and neighbors, the folks he delivered from the Philistines, proving once again the old adage that no good deed goes unpunished.

However, God warned David of Saul's advance and David and his men were able to slip away into the Wilderness of Ziph, where, though Saul sought him every day, “God did not give him into his hand" (1Samuel 23:14)—a happy ending that takes us back to the theme of the psalm: God was one among David's band of brothers, the hard men that kept him safe at night. 

And so, though ersatz friends will betray me, I have loyal friends at my side, and God is one of them—my help in time of need. 

David Roper 

1.20.20