To Encourage You

Psalm 59:9 “O my Strength, I will watch for you, for you, O God, are my fortress.”

Have you ever been in a difficult and stressful situation that you saw no way out of?  Perhaps you’re in such a situation right now?  So, what should we do in such cases?  What do we do when there is no escape from a terrifying or overwhelming situation where everywhere we look, we only see trouble? 

Well, thanks be to God Who sees us when you don’t see Him! Thanks be to the One Who has answers when we have none.  So, where do we find His answers in such a case? Where do we look for help?  Well, like any other situation in life where there seems to be no answer, we look to God’s Word, for that’s where His answers are. 

In the verse above we have the words of David, who wrote so many of the Psalms.  His situation, which is recorded in 1 Samuel 19, was grim when he penned these words. Saul hated David and was trying to destroy him.  He knew that David was at home with his wife Michal (who was actually Saul’s daughter – making David Saul’s own son-in-law) as the scene unfolds.  Saul sends messengers to surround David’s house to watch him and wait to kill him.  And David knew they were there.  There seemed to be no way out.  So where did David look? Well, it was not at his enemies. Although he was well aware of their presence, his gaze was not fixed on them. Rather than look horizontally at his problems, he looked vertically – his gaze was up!  He knew that no matter what the situation looked like from his own perspective, there was One to Whom he could look Who saw things David did not.  In David’s weakness, where he had no answers, he called on the God Whom he called “my Strength.” While David was surrounded, pinned down in his own house, He knew that he had a God Who was his Fortress – a stronger wall within the physical walls he could see. 

There’s another Psalm, the 121^st that speaks of this same thing with these words:

 “I lift up my eyes to the hills.
    From where does my help come?
  My help comes from the Lord,
    who made heaven and earth.

  “He will not let your foot be moved;
    he who keeps you will not slumber.
   Behold, he who keeps Israel
    will neither slumber nor sleep.

   “The Lord is your keeper;
    the Lord is your shade on your right hand.
   The sun shall not strike you by day,
    nor the moon by night.

“The Lord will keep you from all evil;
    he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep
    your going out and your coming in
    from this time forth and forevermore.”

So, if you are facing a difficult, even an overwhelming situation, where is your gaze?  Is it at the situation, where things look grim, or is your gaze looking up, to the God Who transcends it all? Is your eye on your circumstances, or is it on the Lord?  For, if you know Him, He is your Strength just as much as He was David’s.  And this God, Who is your strength, “will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.  The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth (i.e., in the situation you are facing at this very moment!) and forevermore.”

Praise be to the Lord our Strength!