Psalm 60: Instruction

The heading of Psalm 60 has one slight difference from other headings we have seen so far in David’s Psalms. It tells us the time and events surrounding the Psalm, but then it also tells us the Psalm’s purpose. The Psalm was written from a dark place, but it was now to be used for a specific purpose, “for instruction”. This is another difficult Psalm. It’s filled with statements toward God that tend to make me uncomfortable, “You have rejected us”; “You have given us wine to drink that made us stagger”; “You do not go forth, O God, with our armies”. But it’s also filled with prayers that I often pray, one to two-word requests for action that only God can provide: restore, repair, give salvation, grant help. So, we have David saying things about God that I don’t agree with but calling out to God in the same way I do. He’s giving God blame I don’t believe He deserves but he’s still putting himself in submission, even dependence upon God. If the purpose of the Psalm is instruction, then the issue should not be how it makes me feel, but what I need to learn. The difficulty is getting over the discomfort to learn the truth being revealed, being willing to receive instruction from a poem that I don’t understand, even choosing to find discipline in a place that feels more like rejection.

The events that are described in the heading of the Psalm are probably those recorded in II Samuel 8, most of the nations mentioned in the heading and the body of the Psalm are found there. What’s interesting is that all of these battles were victories for King David and the army of Israel and yet, when he writes about this season, he began by saying, “O God, you have rejected us, broken our defenses”. Have you ever felt like the hand of God was against you, even though you know that His heart is always for you? I think we forget that every victory begins with a battle and not many people ever want to go to war. We almost separate David into two different people, the sensitive psalmist and the conquering king. We hear him pour out his heart to God but also see him defeat enemies and lead armies. How often do we consider that his heart must have often been conflicted, much like ours are, that while he walked in faith he was fighting back fear, that God’s plans for him were not always his plans for God, that being king was what God called him to be but it was not always what David wanted to be?

David said that God had rejected them. We can be smug and say that we know that’s not true, but that doesn’t mean it’s not how David felt, even what he feared. Sometimes we have to say out loud how we feel just so that we can hear ourselves and then get back to what we know to be true. But I think there’s even more to this, sometimes the work that God is doing is not pleasant, doesn’t seem like blessing and while we say we feel rejected, it’s actually us that are rejecting Him.

When Jesus first told the apostles that He would suffer and die, Peter pulled Him aside and rebuked Him, “Never, Lord, this shall never happen to You.” Does anyone else see the irony in the fact that Peter called Jesus “Lord” but then told Him what He could and could not do? When Gentiles began to receive Jesus as Lord and be filled with the Holy Spirit, the church in Jerusalem wasn’t sure this was really a work of God, they sent witnesses to check it out and then called for a council to discuss the matter. It seems that when David faced war, he didn’t immediately see it as God enlarging the territory of Israel, but rather, as God allowing Israel to be attacked by their enemies. How often is God working for us, but we are resisting Him? How often is the work that God wants to do found in the thing we were trying to avoid? Israel wanted a Promised Land; they just didn’t want to have to defeat their enemies. The apostles wanted a Savior they just didn’t want Him to die. We often want God’s will; we just don’t want it to interfere with or change ours. Often when God starts to work in us and for us, we feel like He’s working against us. 

I think that’s why the Psalm is said to be “for instruction”. It’s to teach us not to trust our feelings when the hand of God begins to move. It’s to remind us of who God is when we don’t understand or like what He does. It’s to move us past the immaturity of believing that good things are always pleasant and unpleasant things are always bad. Hebrews 12:13 tells us “no discipline is pleasant at the time, but painful.” Discipline has been given a bad rap. We’ve allowed it to be a response to our actions rather than an effort for our good. Discipline is not punishment, it’s not when God reacts to us, to what we’ve done, but it is how God works to mold, shape, instruct and lead us into who we were meant to be. Hebrews tells us that God disciplines us because He loves us. The same thing that motivated the Father to send His only begotten Son, is what motivates Him to bring discipline. Discipline is instruction, it’s provision, it’s protection; it’s what stretches us to be more than we currently are and what removes from us all that we have wrongly believed in our past. Without discipline we have reached our peak and it really is all downhill from there, but with discipline, “what we will be has not yet been known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”

And so, Psalm 60 is about being instructed, being taught, being disciplined. It’s a Psalm that teaches that the hardest of seasons are for our greatest good, that the most painful, even deceitful feelings, can be expressed, but then they must be changed so that we can be healed. It’s a Psalm that teaches us to believe that not everything God does will be pleasant, but everything He does will be good, that sometimes His hands squeeze what at first feels too tight, but the squeezing is so that we will know He won’t ever let go, not so that we will fear we might be crushed. Whatever season you are in, learn from it, the God who loves you is ordering your steps, He’s directing your path so that He can further instruct your heart.