A Word in Season: But as for me... (Psalm 31:14)

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What's the best answer that you can give to your worst difficulties? What will you oppose to particular sufferings or sorrows or struggles?

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At your lowest, what is the highest that you can look to? In Psalm 31, the psalmist is expressing his trust in God, the psalm as a whole is breathing a spirit of dependence toward him, but the psalmist isn't shy about describing the depths of his misery.

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From verse 9 he says, Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am in trouble. My eye wastes away with grief, yes, my soul and my body.

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For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing. My strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away.

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I am a reproach among all my enemies, but especially among my neighbors, and I am repulsive to my acquaintances.

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Those who see me outside flee from me. I am forgotten like a dead man, out of mind,

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I am like a broken vessel. For I hear the slander of many, fear is on every side.

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While they take counsel together against me, they scheme to take away my life.

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Now I don't think many of us would be able to rack up quite such a catalogue of miseries as this.

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Perhaps some of us might feel that we do or have approached to something like this.

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Here is a man who is in trouble. His eye is wasting away with grief, yes, his soul and his body, his whole humanity is afflicted by his circumstances.

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There seems to be upon him some great weight of guilt, or perhaps, even though his sin has been forgiven, nevertheless there are consequences to that sin, and they've brought him low in his flesh.

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His enemies hate him, even his neighbors turn away from him, his closest friends don't really want to look at him, people see him unexpectedly, they shy away from him, he is neglected, he is rejected, there is slander from many, there is fear on every side, and there are people who are plotting against him to kill him.

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Now what can you set against that? How high can you reach when you're brought so low?

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The answer comes in verse 14, but as for me, this is what he's going to oppose to all this suffering and struggle and sorrow.

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This is his answer to all this distress and misery. This is how he's going to respond to desertion and to betrayal and to assault.

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This is how he responds to the reality of his own sin and its consequences.

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What's he going to do? Is he going to turn inside and find some hidden reservoir of strength with which he will oppose all these things that come against him?

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Is he going to call upon his friends and they'll bring in their resources and together they'll be able to stand firm against whatever may come?

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Is there going to be any help in the heavens or the earth, in the things that God himself has made?

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But as for me, what? I trust in you, O Lord, I say you are my

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God. It is simple and yet it is sufficient. I trust in you,

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O Lord. He addresses God as the covenant -keeping God, the God of salvation, the

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God of grace, the one who has shown rich mercy toward him, a God who has undertaken to be his

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God and has said that he will watch over him and guide him and protect him and take care of him.

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This is the God in whom he is now going to trust. This is the God upon whom he will rely.

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This is the God whose word he is going to take at face value. This is the

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God to whom he's going to commit himself in order that he may be kept safe and well.

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He is going to say of that God, you are my God, my mighty one.

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All that is in you is for me because you have promised that it is so.

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And that is going to be my refuge. My times, he says, are in your hand.

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You may not be as low as this man, but every believer can look as high.

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You may not have the sufferings or the struggles or the sorrows in precisely the same way, but you have the same refuge.

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If you don't know where to turn, turn to God. Turn to God as he makes himself known in Christ.

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And if you've turned to him before, turn to him again now. Go to him as a believer.

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And as for you, you trust in your Lord and say, you are my