A Word in Season: Awaken the Dawn (Psalm 57:8)

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I don't know what your reaction tends to be to deep distress and real pressure.

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For some it may be more frantic activity trying to make things right, for others it might be an extreme lethargy, the temptation just to pull the blanket over our heads in the morning to roll over and hope that it will all go away, an unwillingness to face the world.

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David in Psalm 57 faced deep distress. He can speak in verse 4 of his soul being among lions.

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I lie among the sons of men who are set on fire, he says, whose teeth are spears and arrows and their tongue a sharp sword.

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If anyone might have had an excuse just to pull the blanket over his head and hope that the world would go away it might have been

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David, but David rather has set his heart to prepare the

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Lord. He knows that God is delivering him, that those who stand against him are falling into the net that they themselves have laid, and in verse 7 he says my heart is steadfast

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O God, my heart is steadfast, I will sing and give praise, awake my glory, awake lute and harp,

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I will awaken the dawn. There's no frantic activity here and there's no extreme lethargy either.

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Perhaps you know what it's like on the morning when you may go on holiday or you have some important business to go about and you leap out of bed very early and you're full of life, full of beans, or perhaps you know what it's like when you have to get to work day after day and every day you're up and out and about early.

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Here is a man who awakens the dawn with praise, that's his first priority, that's his great concern, because, despite of, regardless of the pressures that he faces, he loves to have his first business be with God, to devote himself to the praise of the

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Lord because his heart is steadfast. He's stirring up his soul here, awake my glory he says, he's calling together all his faculties, he's pulling together all his capacities, he's investing his physical and his mental and his emotional and his spiritual strength in bringing honour and glory to the

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God of his salvation. Awake lute and harp he says, he's desiring to use the means that he has at his disposal,

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I will awaken the dawn. Now if, like me, you live in the northern hemisphere, that's going to become a little bit easier in the coming months as the daylight hours creep in, but not so much for David, that might have meant some early starts for him, but you see the priorities and the pursuits of his heart in his appetite for God.

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Even if we perhaps can't get up before dawn, or even if dawn is sliding, or for some who live even further north, dawn almost never comes, can we at least awake our glory, can we at least stir our souls, can we make it our priority day by day and on the

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Lord's day to come with a heart that is stirred up, that is vitalized, that is energized, that is eager to seek the face of God.

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There may be things going on that would drain away our energies, there may be challenges that we face that overwhelm our souls, there may be sickness in our body that drags us down, there may be darkness in our minds that makes this difficult.

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The drive I'm going on here is not so much to say can you get up earlier and earlier and earlier, as what do you do with your first and freshest moments, what do you do with the the strength of your soul, where do you turn first of all, and what is your great concern?

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If our hearts are steadfast, then we will awaken our glory, we will awake the lute and the harp, we will awaken the dawn, and we will give our praises to our

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God and our Redeemer. Yes, there are many calamities that may be around us, but we can take refuge in the shadow of his wings until those calamities pass us by.

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We know that God shall send forth his mercy and his truth, we know that God is able to undo everything that comes against the church and to preserve and to protect us, and we're not going to give ourselves then to frantic activity or to extreme lethargy, but we should awaken the dawn with a stirred up soul, awake my glory, awake lute and harp,