Divine Hardship

Psalm 57:1

Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy!
    I look to you for protection.
I will hide beneath the shadow of your wings
    until the danger passes by.

By the 57th Psalm a pattern starts to develop. God has given us a personal diary of King David. We don’t find any Dear Abby’s or New Year’s resolutions. We seem to be flooded with the personal prayers of David to God as he goes through his entire life. There are other Psalms written by other people as well, but David authors most of them so far.

Psalm 57 is a prayer/song written by David when he was running from Saul for about seven to ten years. During this time David was constantly on the run from Saul and finding no rest. While running, he penned his prayers along the way. The whole account is written in 1 Samuel. Before any of this running had begun David was anointed to be king, appointed to the king’s palace to play music for the king, and all was going great.

Saul let his focus turn away from God, and thus a tormenting spirit haunted him. He turned his focus off of God and onto David. This began David’s seven to ten years of running. Throughout all of this we read prayers to God like the one in Psalm 57. David was a man after God’s own heart not because he did religious things or followed the Mosaic law. No, it was because he never let his focus turn away from God, even in the bad times. We can say that the seven to ten years David spent running for his life was just the training ground he needed to be the king of Israel and to be labeled as a man after God’s own heart.

Today you may be facing a series of very bad, no good, horrible days. It may seem endless, and you know this has been going on for years. David spent close to a decade of his life anointed to be king and running for his life, hiding in caves and acting like a madman just to stay alive.

While we can look back and put the pieces of David’s life together and see how it was anointed by God, our lives are not that clear. We don’t know what will take place next or how the story ends. We can rest on a prayer that David penned in Psalm 57: “I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed.” The Lord promised to never leave us or forsake us. Even though we may see our lives around us going down in flames, He is still with us. David refused to take his focus off of God. Your divine hardship might just be the training ground God wants you in so He can use you for things that are much larger and grander than you can imagine now. All you have to do to press on is focus on Him and take refuge in His wings until the disaster has passed.

Prayer: Father, help us to take refuge in the shadow of your wings in the middle of disaster. Help us focus on you and your word instead of the happenings around us. In Jesus’ name, amen.