Psalm 31:14-24
David continues his lament. My focus today is on verses 19 and 20, with a focus on four verbs describing the Lord’s activity in our lives: He has stored up abundant goodness for His people; His people take refuge in Him; He hides them; and He stores them in His shelter. As a precursor to His later activities, the Lord has already prepared for His people whatever they need. Eventually they seek to take refuge in Him. He first hides them from the immediate danger, then he places them in some other location where they can be assured safety.
I remember reading The Hiding Place, the true story of Corrie Ten Boom, a Dutch woman who with her family sheltered and saved many Jews from Nazi persecution. An architect had built a secret room in the Ten Boom home, a “hiding place”, set off by a false wall camouflaged to look like a normal house wall. Jews in their city learned of the Ten Boom family’s protection and sought refuge in their home. The Ten Boom family first hid them in that secret place, then together with other Dutch resistance people helped them to escape more fully to England and other locations. Corrie and her sister and father were eventually arrested and sent to concentration camps where her sister and father died. She was released based on a clerical error and later became a well-known Christian writer and speaker. We could easily find similar parallels in Ukrainians today escaping from the Russian onslaught.
To me the interesting part of this full activity is that the Lord has already prepared in advance what we need: Oh, how abundant is Your goodness, which You have stored up for those who fear You… (v. 19a). The Lord knows our needs well in advance of our calling out to Him. We can pray with confidence in our difficulties, knowing that He is well aware of what is going on in our lives. His goodness is already stored up for us.
Deliverance, shelter, refuge, safety, abundance, preservation, hope, wonders of His love; those things of which we are assured, if we remain faithful. Lastly, be strong and take heart… A psalm that offers the encouragement we all need, especially those oppressed.
I, of course, wholeheartedly affirm the faith and hope expressed in psalms like this one. But as we look to the Lord for deliverance, we must not forget the lessons from Job. That is, we must not misinterpret our circumstances: prosperity does not necessarily mean God’s approval, and suffering does not necessarily mean His disapproval. David here in Psalm 31 is crying out in distress. His current circumstances are anything but favorable. Likewise, Jesus says “Into Your hands I commit My spirit” while on the cross — and He saw no deliverance in this life. (In fact, according to Luke, those are His last words.) We must not expect that God’s care for us will always mean pleasantness and prosperity.
The psalmist here calls us to wait for the LORD, which is something we need to hear. Our current culture is addicted to instant gratification, and we easily fall into the trap. We pray and look for speedy results. When we don’t see the answer we want, our faith dwindles and we think God has abandoned us, or is fickle, or — worse — capricious. Millions of people around the world are asking the Lord to bring peace to Ukraine, and I wouldn’t mind seeing Acts 12:23 applied to Putin. But God apparently has other plans, at least for now, and we must wait in full faith and assurance that His words, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Heb. 13:5), are nonetheless true.
Today, I had lunch with an old friend, whose wife has just been diagnosed with cancer. I was armed with Psalm 31 (started him out with verse 15), and he was appreciative. It can’t be just coincidental that this Psalm was readily at-hand. Perfectly timed, Lord.
Fantastic, Tom! It’s what we do, our calling…!!