Articles & Devotionals
Thoughts from Psalm 124
We are beginning to see the end of the darkness that has been this Pandemic. We have begun to assemble again. Jobs have begun to appear, businesses are opening, and people have begun to travel again. How did we do it? Were we that smart? That strong? That courageous? Let’s ask someone that knew a great deal about tough situations and what victory really means.
King David was many things. He was a poet, a ruler, a husband, a father, and a friend. But one thing stands out as a personal trait. David was a fighter. The crowds sang “Saul has killed his thousands, but David his ten-thousands.” He came to the public eye when he killed Goliath, and gained the respect and obedience of the toughest warriors in Israel. I Chronicles chapter 11 lists the commanders and the inner circle, the bodyguards, of David. It may have been his fame spread past the borders of the nation and attracted others to his service, like one of his bodyguards, the man known as Uriah the Hittite. These were fierce, brave and mighty men of war. It bears remembering, David probably could have beaten them all.
What would a great warrior like David say after a really tough fight? Some might brag about how many they had defeated or how really big that last guy was! Picture the great king leaning on his sword, exhausted and filthy, surveying the battlefield. Maybe one of those mighty men that fought beside him was bragging about the victory or how strong they were. David shuts that kind of talk down with these words...
If it had not been the LORD who was on our side— let Israel now say—
if it had not been the LORD who was on our side when people rose up against us,
then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their anger was kindled against us;
then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us;
He says every one of us needs to acknowledge that it was not the power on a sword, the skill of our arms or the speed of the arrows that won the victory. Let everyone say “If God had not been with us, we would not have survived. We would have been swept away like in a flash-flood.”
Forget the hardships and loneliness. Forget the lost jobs, the lost opportunities, and the lost friends. Let each of us say, as we emerge from this strange time where we were worried about enough food, enough medicine, enough hand sanitizer and toilet paper that it was not our strength or smarts that saw us through. We stand on the other side acknowledging that it was God that fought beside us, kept us strong, calmed our fears and saw us through.
This Psalm, number 124, ends with this phrase-“Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth.”
COVID 19 will not be our last crisis, our last fear, or our last struggle. No matter what comes our way, we need to band together and challenge one another with the words of this psalm “let Israel (or our brethren) say it now and say it together. It was the Lord who brought His people through.”
Praise the Lord.
