Psalm 30: "Daddy! Up!"

Psalm 30:1-3

"I will extol you,

O Lord, for you have drawn me up

    and have not let my foes rejoice over me.

O Lord my God, I cried to you for help,

    and you have healed me.

O Lord, you have brought up my soul from Sheol;

    you restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit." (ESV)

Comments:

King David had cried out to God to pick him up, rescue him from his foes and deliver him up from the grave. God had answered and David testified that the Lord had “drawn him up.” Further, David admits that his strength and success before the time of trouble were also due to the Lord preserving him, though he had begun to think that his success was because of his own strength. As a result, David saw the time of testing as a gift for it revealed to him his dependence on the Lord (v. 6-7). He saw the Lord not as normally angry but as One who showed a lifetime of favor. Even moments of discipline are an act of love and favor to those who are taught by them.

Ironically, this psalm was to be sung at the dedication of the temple, after David was dead. Perhaps in this light, it is a plea for the resurrection… the ultimate “Daddy, Up!”

Parents can usually remember times when their children were very young and scared and needed to be picked up and comforted. Perhaps we can remember times when we had to snatch them up into our arms to protect them from a very real danger to their lives—lifting them above sneaker waves, out of swimming pools, away from poisonous snakes, broken glass, snarling dogs, wood stoves and campfires are a few that come to mind. Most of these situations have happened down through the generations in my own family. What have you faced in yours?

Despite the failures of our biological parents, we have a Heavenly Father who does not fail, and is neither mean nor demeaning. He is a Father who doesn’t mock us for our weaknesses but is always working for our good. He is with us no matter what we face. His love changes us, but it doesn’t stop there. He has sent us to continue his mission as his hands and feet on the earth.

There are people around the world who face much worse things than the dangers I listed. There are also many children who had no loving parent to lift them to safety in such moments and there are some moments when even a loving parent has no power to rescue their child. There are far too many children who have been abandoned or abused by a parent, many are even sold into economic or sexual slavery. What an unthinkable idea to most of us…and yet it is all too real, especially for young women.  Such situations make clear the depravity of a darkened mankind. It is in the darkest times that the light can shine brightest, but will we?

At Christmas (as I write this post), perhaps we have heard the haunting lyrics of O Come, O Come Emmanuel which depicts the darkness and prayerful longing into which Christ came as heaven’s answer. Or perhaps we wrestle with the contemporary cruelty of people to each other and the apparent lack of “peace on earth” as the author of I heard the Bells on Christmas Day did. The lyrics to this carol were written by the great American poet H.W. Longfellow, in 1863, after his wife died in a fire and his son was seriously injured fighting for the Union (in the Civil War). The song climaxes with these verses,

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;

"For hate is strong,

And mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The Wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men."

Longfellow's conclusion is right, but it doesn't happen automatically. So how can we participate in the Father’s work of deliverance? As one who believes in a miracle-working God, it is my tendency to pray and expect a miracle rather than get personally involved in being part of the answer. There is nothing wrong with praying and expecting a miracle…however, he may want me to be part of the miracle that he plans to work. In which case, I need to assume that the first miracle that results from my prayer is that of the Lord changing my heart to help the oppressed...to advocate with them in their plight.

Our mourning, along with theirs, can be changed to joy by the loving, protecting, delivering, life-giving work of God…even that which comes through us.