Lord, I Commit Myself To You (Psalm 31)
I think that most of us can look back at our lives and see times of distress. You might be in a time of distress right now. To be a human in a fallen world means that we will live through times of hardship and distress. Sickness will fall upon us or our family. People we love will die. People we care for will betray us. And we will make mistakes that cause us pain.
Simply put, we live in a world marred by sin and the effects of that are all around us. Therefore, we will find ourselves in the middle of hardship.
When you know that an obstacle is coming you have two options. You can either watch it coming on the horizon, sit there, and take it. Or you can prepare yourself for the obstacle to come. Knowing that hardship and pain are on the horizon, we should prepare our hearts and lives for that very thing.
Psalm 31 is beautiful. It’s beautiful because it teaches the right response to struggle and hardship in our lives. And it portrays this response in a very real way.
But the layout of Psalm 31 is not such that we can just move line by line and thought by thought through the text. There is a vicious back and forth that takes place throughout the chapter. And I must say that it feels to me like the same back and forth that has occasionally rattled through my own brain. Trusting the Lord amid hardship is oftentimes more of a process than an event. Sometimes it takes a while for us to get to where we need to be.
But what we will see from this text is that we are to entrust ourselves to the Lord and nothing else. Entrust yourself to the Lord and prepare for the hardships to come.
Entrust Yourself To The Lord And No Other (Psalm 31:1-13)
The psalm begins with a very large statement of trust in the Lord (Psalm 31:1). And the theme of this entire psalm is faith and trust in the Lord, amid incredible difficulty. David understood that the Lord was his refuge and that God would deliver him. And he asks, as we have all done at some point, for that deliverance to take place quickly (Psalm 31:4). The beginning of this psalm is David stating that his hope and trust is in the Lord. He does not entrust himself to worthless idols or those who do such things (Psalm 31:6) The Lord is his refuge and it is in the Lord only that he will seek his solace. Rather than run with those who trust in idols, he trusts the Lord (Psalm 31:7). God had delivered him in the past (Psalm 31:8). God had put him in safety. And David trusted the Lord.
So far, so good. And if the text stopped there without the complicating factors of human fallenness and the struggles we all face the psalm would be finished.
But we begin to see in our text today the back and forth that the faithful go through often. He pleads with the Lord to be gracious to him. Sorrow, sadness and tears make it hard for him to even see (Psalm 31:9). His soul feels as if it is wasting away along with his body (Psalm 31:9b). And if you have gone through seasons of serious anxiety and depression, you understand exactly what he is saying. His very life seems to be draining from him because of sorrow (Psalm 31:10). And the years are seeming to pass away from him without joy, but sighting. David is devastated and it has caused him to look at and think on past sins. I think we’ve all been there as well.
David goes further into how life is going for him. He is alone. People do not want to see him or talk to him because of his adversaries (Psalm 31:11). He is completely isolated from others (Psalm 31:12). Even his neighbors treat him this way. Acquaintances don’t want to have anything to do with him. And people on the street avoid him. And this is all because of his adversaries. David knew that people were trying to take his life. He knew that danger was on every side. And he knew that people were avoiding him.
But, as we saw in the opening of the text and will see throughout our psalm today. Ultimately, David entrusted himself to the Lord.
Life is hard. And when you are in the middle of a crisis it is even harder. But looking at a struggle like this helps us in two areas.
First, I believe it helps us to see that the back and forth that a lot of you, myself included, have had in your minds is completely normal. You can see it plainly with David. That internal struggle occurs with great ferocity at times, and this helps us to understand that we are not strange for having this sort of back and forth in our own minds. It happens.
But we also see how we are to fight through those times of struggle. We do so trusting in the Lord. We are not sitting in neutral letting our emotions take over. We are in the middle of a struggle in which we constantly call ourselves back to trust in the Lord.
There are times when difficult situations arise in our lives. Illness, death, or circumstances come that seem to nearly destroy us. And how is it that we respond?
Well, if we’re being honest, a lot of us have the same back and forth that David had here. And I hope that as we move through the text, we are helped by seeing him face this situation head on.
Look to God’s Word And Trust His Promises (Psalm 31:14-18)
Even though there is all this pain and hardship in his life, David trusts the Lord. David cried out to the Lord, “My times are in your hand” (Psalm 31:15). The horrid things that are taking place in his life right now have not caused his trust in the Lord to go away. He boldly asserts that he has entrusted himself to the Lord and again pleads for rescue.
But then David does something that not everyone is capable of doing. And it is something that you need to be capable of doing if you are going to survive the winds and waves of hardship in your own life. He used Scripture to build his faith in the Lord. He spoke the Aaronic blessing over his life and over his situation.
“The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”” (Numbers 6:24-27 ESV)
Here’s the truth of the matter. You can’t call upon Scripture in your time of need if you don’t already know it. Sure, you can study God’s Word when hard times come. But your going to have a hard time doing that through the tears and the pain. You’d better already know it and have internalized it before the time comes. And then, like David, we should boldly ask for God to fulfill what God said He would do in our lives (Psalm 31:17-18).
We must be careful here. We need to interpret and apply Scripture rightly, but we also need to trust that God will do what He has said He would do.
Dwelling upon and applying Scripture causes us to grow in an understanding of God’s goodness and grace toward us (Psalm 31:19-20). This gives us strength to face the struggles that will come.
If you are the type that keeps a gun around for protection, then you understand that you have to have ammunition if you are going to ward off an intruder.
Well, I’m afraid that a lot of Christians today don’t have enough ammunition loaded to ward off doubts when struggles come. There hasn’t been enough of God’s Word loaded into the brain to do what David has done here.
And beyond that, I have become convicted about dwelling on the Word and meditation of the Word. You might ask, “How’s that, you read your Bible often?”
Right you are.
But I have loaded so much other stuff into my life that there’s barely a moment of silence. It takes me 2 minutes to drive to work, but on the way I listen to a podcast. I do the same if I am doing a short task, or sometimes just brushing my teeth.
Why is that a problem?
I have allotted little or no time in my day to meditate and ponder the Word that I’ve been studying. I need for God’s Word to dwell in me richly (Colossians 3:16).
I need to have God’s Word as an immediate resource if I am going to be able to use it properly when the time comes. David did the preparation and was able to dig into a wealth of resources from his knowledge and meditation upon God’s Word. We need to do the same.
So, spend time in the Word. And dwell upon the Word so that you will be able to face these hardships when the time comes.
The Lord Is Faithful, Even When You’re Not (Psalm 31:21-22)
It seems that David here looks back at an event. The city he was in was besieged and in that moment he became scared and distrusted the Lord.
But notice what happened.
The Lord heard him and rescued him anyway.
David looked back and did something that we could all probably do as well. We have the ability to look back at our lives at times when we were not exactly trusting the Lord and see that He was faithful to us anyway.
That should fill your heart with joy. That should fill your heart with courage to face the current situation. And it should fill you with trust in the Lord.
“The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful– for he cannot deny himself.” (2Timoth 2:11-13 ESV)
Do what David did here and let that be fuel for your trust in the Lord.
Christian, Entrust Yourself To The Lord And Walk Boldly In The Danger (Psalm 31:23-24)
All of this leads David to end with a call for God’s people to trust the Lord. He states that God “preserves the faithful” and “repays the one who acts with pride” (Psalm 31:23). God will be good to His people, therefore we can trust Him.
This means that we no longer take life as it comes, but we can face life with courage and bravery.
We are not to be crippled by the struggles of this life. This inward struggle is not to terminate upon ourselves. It does not just end with us being in a better emotional state. It ends with us walking faithfully in tough situations. In the end, we entrust ourselves to the Lord and meet the circumstances before us with boldness. And we can do this because we have entrusted ourselves to the Lord.
Conclusion
We live in a world that has been rocked by sin. And because of that hardship is coming. We would do well to heed the words of David and prepare for what is to come. Because struggle and hardship will one day hit you, and you will need to be prepared. Commit yourself to the Lord.
R. Dwain Minor