Common to the human experience is the reality of fear. We are all prone to fear at various stages of the journey. It is fear that a child experiences when separated from his mom in a grocery store. It is fear that a husband feels in his heart for his wife who is a few hours late getting home and she isn't answering her phone. It is fear that runs through every one of us when something unknown that feels bigger than us, something that could threaten us in any of a number of ways. We all understand fear, it is all too common in our everyday lives. Nobody had to teach it to us, we simply understand the reality of fear as it is upon us.
David, the psalmist, the great King of Israel knew fear all too well. Not fully aware the context behind why he wrote Psalm 56, but we learn there are people in pursuit of him, attackers, enemies (the superscript helps inform a bit). They are apparently after him with intent to take his life. That is real reason for real fear. And we are certain all of it added up to fear in his life, because David says, "When I am afraid"(v3). So even for a man like this who loved the Lord, believed in the Lord, walked in His ways, even the great David is still prone to fear.
And you can feel the undesirable nature of it all. He speaks of his "tossings" maybe in relation to his sleeplessness (which may otherwise be interpreted "wanderings" possibly speaking of his journeying about in hope of escaping his pursuers). And he speaks further of the "tears" he has cried. The emotion inside of us something proves so great that it is felt in what comes out of us. And sometimes our words don't even do a service to how great the fear inside of us really is, at which point our bodies join in the expression of how great our fear is with tears. This was David's reality, and it has been our reality too at times.
And yet, this is no place for those who know God to remain. David proves this even by his response in v3-4a. "When I am afraid, I put my trust in You. In God, whose word I praise." We rarely look at the benefits of fear, but this is revealing it. If anything is able to bring us close to God, bring us in to more trust (faith) in Him, it is good. After all, we please God by the faith we have in Him (Heb. 11:6). So then, God in his grace is informing us here of this glorious reality. Fear, when used rightly, is nothing more than the expedited path to God.
Of course we have skipped right over a reality that is true, but one we take for granted. Why is it God can be trusted? What do we know about God that he is able, and willing to help, knowledgeable about what is best such that we should trust Him in the first place? To which David so appropriately reminds us, it is because of His "word." What God has generously revealed about Himself throughout His Word gives us all we need to know about why we can and should trust Him. Again, His grace is informing us here, even in our fear and because of our fear. Used rightly, fear is a tool to help us get to Him, the God who is able and accessible.
Grace informs further, not only that God can be trusted, but more of why He is to be trusted. Our fear is so great at times that we assume what caused that fear will never end. Notice how God deals with David's enemies (vv5-7). God's judgment is what is being pointed out. His "wrath" will one day come down on all those who have not been reconciled to Him. In other words, what causes our fear now is not ultimate. God is ultimate. Grace is informing us: our fears and their causes will end when God determines their end.
Further, notice how God is moving as a result of what David suffers. In verse 8 we learn that God "keeps count of his tossings" and that he puts all his "tears in a bottle." I don't assume these are literal matters, but it is David's way of telling that God is not removed from our suffering and the cause of our fears. He is involved, and taking note. In fact, David reveals here that God keeps a journal of our suffering when he says, "are they not in your book?" God of course has no reason for a journal of His own. He neither learns nor forgets anything. So again, let's not make this a literal book God keeps. But it is informing us of God's care, compassion, concern for us in what afflicts us. We keep journals to remember hard, painful, difficult matters, and even years after we have been through that experience, the very words we can read that we wrote so many years before can conjure up similar emotions to what we experienced when we first penned those words. All of this should be speaking to us of how involved God is in our very suffering.
And so grace informs us further. The Apostle Paul wrote about all he was suffering (2 Cor. 4:17) and summed it up by calling it "light, momentary, affliction." I don't know about you, but when I read of Paul's great trials in his faithfulness to the Lord, they seem neither light, nor momentary. What do I really suffer at all in comparison to him? The reason Paul's (and thus mine) are light is not because he compares to some whose are so much greater than his, but rather in light of matters eternal, namely, the glory that God will reveal and give us in the life to come. "This light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory." It appears what Paul is saying is that all the suffering we endure in this life is only the payment we make, to then be repaid with what he simply calls "an eternal, weight of glory." What is that GLORY? It is joy, peace, comfort, happiness that we will experience forever in His presence. I often wonder if there is some corresponding proportion to suffering and glory. Whatever the case is, this is a reminder that even suffering, what causes fear, serves a larger, eternal purpose, all of which is for our good.
And so grace is ever informing us here. There is no more sufficient way to see all this, but than what David points out at the end of verse 9 when he says, "This I know, that God is for me." And there is nothing about that statement that leaves us uninformed. No, it doesn't answer the questions as to what will attack or injure us (cause us fear) moving ahead, nor how long we shall be afflicted as such. But what it does answer is that God being for us, is every bit greater than anything that should be against us. What is it we could face that isn't properly informed by the grace of God being for us?
The Christian life proves to be fully informed not merely of pain and suffering as relates to common loss and dangers and threats that we all experience, but even the greatest ones that we will all experience but spend the most time avoiding: death. Death is as great a fear as we could face, but even facing the "granddaddy of them all" we stand informed. For even the great enemy of the death becomes only but the gateway to true life. And it is why there is great comfort in the words of Christ, who said, "Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28).
Are you fearful? Have your own troubles moved you into a place of deep darkness and utter crippled by it that you can't function? Then you are again being informed that you are the one who Christ is calling to Himself, and He promises you "REST." Let His grace again inform you.
