Sunday Devotional: Psalm 56: Tears in a Bottle

A quick jaunt back a few Psalms to catch one that is very meaningful to me ...

Psalm 56 (NKJV) ~ To the Chief Musician. Set to “The Silent Dove in Distant Lands.” A Michtam of David when the Philistines captured him in Gath.

Be merciful to me, O God, for man would swallow me up;
Fighting all day he oppresses me.
² My enemies would hound me all day,
For there are many who fight against me, O Most High.

A friend and I were musing this week on how unrelenting warfare is for believers, especially lately. Let’s face it, if we belong to God, we have a lot of enemies.

³ Whenever I am afraid,
I will trust in You.
⁴ In God (I will praise His word),
In God I have put my trust;
I will not fear.
What can flesh do to me?

The flip side of that is, regardless of how many enemies we have, we have the God of the universe on our side. “If God be for us, who can be against us?”

⁵ All day they twist my words;
All their thoughts are against me for evil.
⁶ They gather together,
They hide, they mark my steps,
When they lie in wait for my life.
⁷ Shall they escape by iniquity?
In anger cast down the peoples, O God!

They think they can get away with breaking the rules ... by breaking the rules ... but they can’t.

⁸ You number my wanderings;
Put my tears into Your bottle;
Are they not in Your book?
⁹ When I cry out to You,
Then my enemies will turn back;
This I know, because God is for me.
¹⁰ In God (I will praise His word),
In the Lord (I will praise His word),
¹¹ In God I have put my trust;
I will not be afraid.
What can man do to me?

You number my wanderings ... put my tears into Your bottle ...

What a thought that He collects even our tears, holds them in precious remembrance ... that each wandering is marked and noted. Even when we think we’re far from him, even when we weep, He sees, He knows. He doesn’t just care, but He records it in His book!

¹² Vows made to You are binding upon me, O God;
I will render praises to You,
¹³ For You have delivered my soul from death.
Have You not kept my feet from falling,
That I may walk before God
In the light of the living?

Sometimes all that keeps us walking with the Lord is the vows we’ve spoken before Him. Yet just to stop and remember what He’s done for us—You have delivered my soul from death—is what spurs us to offer Him praise, time after time.

Because He has delivered each of us from an untimely death, and from untold falls, with the purpose that we should each walk before Him—and with Him—to fulfill whatever purpose He has for each of us “in the light of the living”—during our existence on this planet. He preserves us, despite the unrelenting warfare, for however long that might be.

And in the meantime, in the times of sorrow, He bends tenderly close, to catch each tear as it falls.