“In you, Lord, I have taken refuge; let me never be put to shame; deliver me in your righteousness.
Turn your ear to me, come quickly to my rescue; be my rock of refuge, a strong fortress to save me.
Since you are my rock and my fortress, for the sake of your name lead and guide me.
Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and body with grief.
My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak.
But I trust in you, Lord; I say, “You are my God.”
My times are in your hands; deliver me from the hands of my enemies, from those who pursue me.”
This past weekend we heard Peter’s confession in Matthew 16 that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God. It was on the rock of that gospel confession (and not Peter) that Christ has built his church. This week’s psalm shares a similar idea - David recognizes his Lord as his refuge and rock, a safe place to dwell. We get another picture at the kind of struggles and suffering David was experiencing, struggles that lasted from his days as a shepherd to his final days as king of Israel. These struggles, or “crosses,” often got the better of David, leading him to seek God for help.
Do you see your own struggles in David’s words? Do you feel anxious over certain problems that have come up in your life? Perhaps your eyes are tired from crying over the stress you find around every corner as you fail to find peaceful sleep. While people tell us to be strong, to believe in ourselves, we cannot always find the strength to do it. Our bones and muscles falter. We, like David, cannot be the strength we need, not on our own.
But the parallels don’t end there. We, like David, go to God for help. We know that where we are weak, He will always be strong enough to handle the crosses that are put in our way. Our enemies will not get the best of us with God on our side. He is our strength, our protector. We trust in His plan for us, that even as these crosses are placed in our lives, even to the moment where death seems to close our eyes forever, we will awaken to deliverance in the great city of heaven and receive the crown of eternal life our Father has prepared for us.
Even Jesus related to Psalm 31. As he faced his own (literal!) cross, on the brink of death, Jesus uttered the words of Psalm 31:5 - “Into your hands I commit my spirit.“ As he suffered an undeserved death, Jesus trusted in his Father’s plan of salvation. The Savior’s time was in God’s hands. They could be in no better place than that! So too we trust in God, who holds our times in His hands. We trust in Him, knowing that what He did for David and what He did for His Son, He will do for us too.
Prayer: Lord, in the burdens of our crosses we are in constant danger of being felled by the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh; but you provided your only-begotten Son to be our righteousness. Drive us to flee to him for refuge whenever our enemies threaten, for he alone is our rock and our fortress. In his name we ask it. Amen.