Whew! That Was a Close Call

PREVIEW: When David wrote, “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them,” he was coming off a life-threatening episode that was the result of a major lapse of judgment on his part. Yet God had pulled his bacon out of the fire, and David was not only relieved, but he was also very grateful. Now, I am not advocating that the mistakes we make are no big deal. They are…and they can be very costly. But friend, we serve a God who trumps our mistakes with his grace and turns our goofs into glory for himself and good for us. We may take a few lumps along the way, but at the end of the day, even on our best day, it is God who makes something beautiful out of it. I love how the famed hymn writer, John Newton put it, “We serve a gracious Master who knows how to overrule even our mistakes to His glory and our own advantage.”

A Journey of Worship // Psalm 34:4-7

I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. This poor man called, and the Lord heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.

You’ve got to notice the title of this psalm to really appreciate it:

A Psalm of David. When he pretended to be insane before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he left.

David was on the lam…just a step ahead of death due to King Saul’s maniacal and murderous hatred. On this particular occasion, out of desperation, David sought refuge, of all places, in the Philistine city of Gath. Gath, you might recall, was the hometown of a famed warrior-hero that David had killed in stunning fashion on the battlefield: Goliath.

David is seeking refuge in the city of his enemy rather than in the shelter of the Almighty. Now to be fair, David has done a lot of things right up to this point in his life. He has depended on the Lord, day after day and night after night for years, patiently enduring and deftly avoiding Saul’s relentless posse. But now he makes a big mistake — and it almost costs him his life.

The people of Gath recognize David for what he is: the chief warrior of their archenemy Israel, and they want the Philistine king to have him executed. Suddenly, realizing the pickle he’s gotten himself into, David comes up with a crazy idea: He’ll go postal. So he feigns insanity, starts scratching at the door, drooling in his beard, and howling at the moon (okay, I added that last one). When the king sees David in this deranged state, he says, “Look at the man! He is insane! Why bring him to me? Am I so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me? Must this man come into my house?”(1 Samuel 21:14-15)

With that, David beats a retreat back to the cave of Adullam, and there as before, he finds God in the cave. That is where the much-relieved David penned these immortal words: “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.”

Now I am not advocating that the mistakes we make are no big deal. They are…and they can be very costly. But friend, we serve a God who trumps our mistakes with his grace and turns our goofs into glory for himself and good for us. We may take a few lumps along the way, but at the end of the day, even on our best day, it is God who makes something beautiful out of it. I love how the famed hymn writer, John Newton put it,

We serve a gracious Master who knows how to overrule even our mistakes to His glory and our own advantage.

Come on now, aren’t you glad for that? Along with me, on a few occasions you have said, “Whew, God pulled my bacon out of the fire on that one!” That being translated, is “the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them!”

You might want to thank God for that little fact, by the way. I think I will!