A dude who has been there before

Psalm 27 is a favorite of mine. David probably wrote this after a guy named Doeg talked smack about David to Saul, who was the King of Israel at the time. Saul pretty much tried to kill David every chance he got after that!

There’s a ton to this Psalm. I’m going to take a look at the first 3 verses today:

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? When evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh, my adversaries and foes, it is they who stumble and fall. Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war arise against me, yet I will be confident.” (Psalm 27:1-3, ESV)

CONFIDENCE IN GOD

Some say when you are born you only have two natural fears: the fear of falling and of loud noises. Others would argue that those aren’t fears – they’re actually reflexes. If that’s true…then we actually come into this world FEARLESS! I love that concept! We don’t stay that way for long though…

Are you afraid of the dark? One of my scariest memories as a young child is of the curtains in my bedroom. They had tie backs on them and when the night light hit them, it cast a shadow on my wall…of DARTH VADER!!! There are caves so deep they are considered to be the darkest place on earth…when the flashlights are turned off, the darkness that engulfs is so thick that people become disoriented and their equilibrium is affected.

David knows what the dark is like. David knows that light dispels darkness. He understands that God is the source of spiritual light in our darkness of humanity. But he ascribes more…God is not just the source of light…He IS the light! That is altogether different. I can get light from a flashlight…but the flashlight is not the light. David says that the Lord IS my light and my salvation!

How about dying? Even if you’re secure about where you’ll spend eternity, most people aren’t in a hurry to get there. As the masterful biblical expositor Joe Diffy says, “Lord I wanna go to Heaven…I don’t wanna go tonight”. But then again, while we will all die at some point, very few of us face the prospect of death in the manner David was speaking. Just so we are clear, when he wrote “when evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh”, he was talking about people hunting him down to destroy him like savage animals!

That’s not where we live…PRAISE GOD! But, we all have very real fears…and David’s words are a comfort:

The Lord IS our stronghold! My heart WILL NOT fear! I WILL BE confident!

Fear is rooted in an awareness of vulnerability and a sense of helplessness. David speaks of armies surrounding him and his corresponding confidence. Even valiant warriors’ heart race in the moments before battle – but not David’s – his response is confidence!!! That is not natural – it is SUPERnatural!

Charles Spurgeon wrote that “confidence is the child of experience”. David responded with confidence not because he was cocky or arrogant. On the contrary, David displayed confident humility because he had been there before. He made these statements in a real life situation from actual experiences with God. These were not theoretical statements – they were experiential!

I hope this is an encouragement to you. I hope your fears are neutralized in the face of God’s faithfulness and that your faith is stretched with each new experience.