LOW, LOW, LOW (Psalm 142)

"God, can you hear me?" These satellite disks made me grateful that

prayer doesn't need such technology to access heaven!

(Part of an ongoing series on the 48 psalms commended for study during times of "feeling down," from pastor/counselor David Seamand's' book "Healing for Damaged Emotions.")

What do you say to God when you’re so spiritually and emotionally low that you don’t know what to say?  Welcome to Psalm 142, introduced by this note: “A maskil of David. When he was in the cave. A prayer.” A “maskil” is some sort of musical term. But the words “the cave” are an important clue. Psalm 57 (identified as a “miktam,” another music term) also says it’s for “when he [David] had fled form Saul into the cave.” That despairing time in David’s life is recorded in 1 Samuel 21-22. David had risen to be a hero in Saul’s royal court because of his military prowess and musical skills. But Saul had come to hate the man who’d succeed him instead of his own son Jonathan, and tried to kill David. In his escape, David ended up in an enemy town that wanted nothing to do with him. After all, he’d killed their hero giant, Goliath! On the run again, he ended up in a desert cave—homeless, hungry and friendless.  Was this how God treated His faithful followers?

GUT-WRENCHING PRAYING

As I read this psalm, I’m also hearing the despair of Psalms 42-43:

Why are you downcast, O my soul?

Why so disturbed within me? (42:5b, 11a; 43:5a)

Utterly alone in the wilderness, no doubt afraid to show his face outside, David faced hopelessness—and told God about it. Only imagination can describe his tone of voice—whether a hoarse whisper in the echoes of the cave, or bold shouts. But his despair spew in honest, hard words.

I cry aloud to the LORD, I lift up my voice to the LORD for mercy. I pour out my complaint before him; before him I tell my trouble. (vv. 1-2)

What’s the lesson here? That God can take it! We don’t have to crawl into Heaven’s throne room and say in a meek voice, “Any chance we could talk?” David complains from his tortured heart, “God, you know the mess I’m in. Evil men are out there, wanting to snare me. Everywhere I look, there’s no out. I’m cornered. Nobody cares about my life” (my paraphrase of vv. 3-5).

DARING TO HOPE

Maybe you’ve said something like this: “I’m in desperate need!” You’ve just quoted verse 6. Life couldn’t be any bleaker, and David wanted God to know it (as if He didn’t already). The soldiers Saul dispatched to find and kill David planned to thoroughly carry out their orders. “Rescue me from those who pursue me,” David cried, “for they are too strong for me” (v. 6b).

We may not be listening from a cave for the sounds of approaching hooves, but life can sometimes be “too strong” for us. A broken relationship, job loss, disaster, financial hardship, a loved one’s death, false accusation, wayward children—all of these and more can make us feel like David, ready to curl up in a cave and give up. But Psalm 142 isn’t just about despair. It’s about looking up to God when you’re down:

Set me free from my prison, that I may praise your name.

Then the righteous will gather about me because of your goodness to me. (v. 7)

David knew God was capable of turning things around. If God didn’t, then He had lied in having David anointed as the next king. But stuck in a blind alley, David knew his impossible “rescue” could do only one thing: bring glory to God.  That’s a big change from the “glory” that came to a lad who slew a giant, then grew to a strapping young man who outclassed all of Saul’s other warriors.

“Low, low, low” isn’t God’s “forever” plan for His own. We may have to go through those “dark caves of crying” at some time in this fallen world. But someday our Redeemer will come. The righteous will gather about HIM, and—like the end of this psalm says--praise Him because of His goodness to us.