Psalms

This Psalm is a very personal prayer of David.  It is the only Davidic Psalm in the entire 3rd book.  There is a very real sense of urgency in David's words as he sought the Lord.  There are 14 requests in the Psalm, between this man and the God that he has a relationship with.  Every person can identify with the feelings and distress that David is feeling.

A Prayer of David.

¹Bow down Your ear, O LORD, hear me;
For I am poor and needy.
² Preserve my life, for I am holy;
You are my God;
Save Your servant who trusts in You!
David finds himself in a place where he is poor and needy.  He calls out to God, asking that He would hear Him.  He recognizes that God is High and lifted up and that he is but a man.  But, because there is a covenant relationship, David knows that he can ask God to incline His ear to him and hear his need.

Verse 2 seems to reveal what's left when everything else in life is stripped away.  We will all find ourselves in a place where life seems to have let us down.  We'll all feel poor and needy and lonely in our own strength.  In this place David cries out for preservation on the fact that he is holy.  This doesn't mean he is without sin but that he is set apart for God.  He is in a covenant relationship with God and seeks to be obedient in that relationship.  "You are my God," this is the relationship.  David is humbled in that statement and God is lifted up.  This is the most basic fact and foundation of his life; it is the statement, "You are my God."

³Be merciful to me, O Lord,
For I cry to You all day long.
⁴ Rejoice the soul of Your servant,
For to You, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
⁵ For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive,
And abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You.
The burden that David is feeling must be heavy and he asks that God would be merciful toward Him.  We know that we can cast our cares on the Lord because He cares for us.  David knew this also but can't find relief from the tears he cries all day long.  The soul is the inner man, the eternal being that was created by God.  David lifts that to the Lord in surrender and asks that God would rejoice that soul.  Then David declares what he knows to be true; God is good, ready to forgive, abundant in mercy and abounding in love. 

⁶ Give ear, O LORD, to my prayer;
And attend to the voice of my supplications.
⁷ In the day of my trouble I will call upon You,
For You will answer me.
David calls on the Lord in the day of his trouble.  This is possible because David called on the Lord with all his life, in all his life.  David praise God in the rain and the sunshine.  That relationship that was developed on sunny days was the same one that would carry him through the dark days.

⁸ Among the gods there is none like You, O Lord;
Nor are there any works like Your works.
⁹ All nations whom You have made
Shall come and worship before You, O Lord,
And shall glorify Your name.
¹⁰ For You are great, and do wondrous things;
You alone are God.
How does God stack up among the gods of the world?  Can we rank him in several categories?  Can man measure him and see what he has to offer for us before we take a god as Lord?  But what kind of comparison is the Living God with imaginary gods of the heathen lands?  There is no God like Yahweh.  There are no works like His works.  All the nations will come to know that He alone is God.  They will come and worship Him and glorify His name.

¹¹ Teach me Your way, O LORD;
I will walk in Your truth;
Unite my heart to fear Your name.
¹² I will praise You, O Lord my God, with all my heart,
And I will glorify Your name forevermore.
¹³ For great is Your mercy toward me,
And You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.
David didn't just want out of this difficult place he was in, he wanted to learn from it.  He desired that God teach him the Lord's way.  David wanted to walk with Him in truth.  This desire to walk with the Lord opened up into statements of praise and worship.  Who am I that He would be mindful of me, yet, I get to walk with Him!  It was only because God's mercy was great that David could walk with him.  In that mercy, David knew he had been delivered from Sheol.

¹⁴ O God, the proud have risen against me,
And a mob of violent men have sought my life,
And have not set You before them.
¹⁵ But You, O Lord, are a God full of compassion, and gracious,
Longsuffering and abundant in mercy and truth.
David found himself at odds with the proud men of the world who had risen up against him.  He found his life threatened by this mob of men who didn't know the God of Jacob.  And if David were a man of pride as those men had been, he would have been without hope.  But because he knew God and had a relationship with him, David could rely on the compassion, grace, patience, mercy and truth.  The mob of prideful men in the world may attack and harm the body and take your life, but David's soul was untouchable.  It was bound up in the Lord.  That same longsuffering and mercy shown to us before we believed is now shown to those who are still in rebellion with God.  We see those men as the mob of prideful heathens, of which we used to belong.

¹⁶ Oh, turn to me, and have mercy on me!
Give Your strength to Your servant,
And save the son of Your maidservant.
¹⁷ Show me a sign for good,
That those who hate me may see it and be ashamed,
Because You, LORD, have helped me and comforted me.

David asked for God to grant him mercy and strength in this time of need.  As David sought the Lord in his time of troubles we see his no different than we.  He wanted to know God was there.  He needed to feel God and hear Him, so he asks for a sign.  And in that sign, David would be encouraged while his enemies would be ashamed. 

Is it okay for us to ask for a sign?  The bible says we aren't to put God to the test.  Don't we see signs all the time?  In the creation we see Him, in the quiet of the night he speaks to our soul, in all of life we feel His presence.