Refuge

Scripture Reading: Psalm 142

I cry out to the Lord with my voice;
With my voice to the Lord I make my supplication.
I pour out my complaint before Him;
I declare before Him my trouble.

When my spirit was overwhelmed within me,
Then You knew my path.
In the way in which I walk
They have secretly set a snare for me.
Look on my right hand and see,
For there is no one who acknowledges me;
Refuge has failed me;
No one cares for my soul.

I cried out to You, O Lord:
I said, “You are my refuge,
My portion in the land of the living.

Attend to my cry,
For I am brought very low;
Deliver me from my persecutors,
For they are stronger than I.
Bring my soul out of prison,
That I may praise Your name;
The righteous shall surround me,
For You shall deal bountifully with me.

There is an echo of this Psalm at the end of 2 Timothy where Paul, facing death, says everyone had deserted him and no one came to stand with him when he stood on trial for his life.

We could pick Paul and David’s complaints apart and say it wasn’t completely accurate. David had his men. Paul admits Luke was there. But they aren’t counting noses, they are expressing feelings. This is how they felt. They felt alone, and although we could say that they weren’t completely alone, that is how they felt.

I have heard it said that facts don’t care about your feelings. The converse is true sometimes too. Feelings don’t always care about the facts.

I had a friend once who, largely due to his own decisions, fell into a bad place. Sin had overtaken him and his life was in shambles. I reached out to him and tried to be a friend and help him out of the spiritual ditch he had fallen into. Through a mutual friend, I later learned that he had been complaining that no one did anything to help him during his “dark night of the soul.” I was bothered by that statement because I knew I had done my best to help. Later I realized that he wasn’t speaking about facts. He was talking about feelings. And those feelings matter.

So, if you can relate to Paul or David, I won’t try to regale you with facts. I will try to help you deal with your feelings. If you don’t relate to them, I would encourage you to keep this in your back pocket because someday you might.

What David and Paul both did and what I think was the reason the Lord let things unfold in their lives the way it did, was they both came to see Christ as their refuge. In Psalm 142:4, David says, “No refuge remains to me.” Then, in the very next verse, he says to the Lord, “You are my refuge.” Paul says that no one stood with him. Then, he follows that up by saying that the Lord stood by him.

When you feel alone and abandoned, there are two paths you can take. One will end in renewal and strength, the other will end in depression and darkness. You can choose to stay focused solely on how people let you down. You can become bitter about who wasn’t there for you in your hour of need. You can keep saying with David, “No one cares for my soul.” If this is as far as you go you will remain in the valley of bitterness.

But if you lift your eyes, you will see there is a road out of that dark valley. If you cry out to the Lord and say, “You are my refuge,” you will begin to ascend toward the heights where the light shines brightly.

refuge