Psalm 142: Portion

How do we respond when nothing goes according to our plans? We love to remind each other that God has a plan for our lives, that we were created with and for purpose, that there is a “destiny” awaiting us. What we might need to be more honest about is the reality that as much as we talk about God’s plan for us, we tend to live more in our plans for God. We trust His Word, we believe in His promises, we know His character and yet we want life to meet our expectations and when it doesn’t, we are prone to panic. One of the verses that should keep us from being comfortable making our own plans and at the same time, comfort us when our plans seem like they are falling apart is Proverbs 16:9, “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.” Yes, God has a plan for our lives, but that plan is probably far different than we have imagined. When He starts having His way and we start losing ours will we yield to Him or fight for ourselves? Will we go kicking and screaming or trusting and obeying? Will we hold out for our interpretation of God’s promises, or will we rest in knowing that God Himself is our portion? 

The heading of Psalm 142 tells us that it was written by David “when he was in the cave”. It’s assumed by most that this is referring to the cave of Adullam as recorded in I Samuel 22. This is very similar to Psalm 57, which has the heading, “of David, when he fled from Saul, in the cave”. This was, at the time, the lowest point of David’s life and it had come out of nowhere and by none of his own doing. He was on an upward trajectory. He was the shepherd of his father’s sheep when one day the prophet Samuel came and anointed him as the next king of Israel. He had been the harpist called upon to play for King Saul when his soul was troubled, his music soothed the king’s troubled heart so much that I Samuel 16:21 says that Saul loved him greatly. David had been sent by his father to check on his older brothers, soldiers in the army of Israel when he boldly went out to fight the giant Goliath. He killed the giant and suddenly became Israel’s greatest warrior. Everyone loved him, the king, the soldiers, the nation and then suddenly, with no warning any plans that David may have had were ruined. 

After another victory over the Philistines, as King Saul, David and the army returned, the women came out of all the cities singing, “Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands”. (I Samuel 18:7) With those two lines of that one song everything changed. Saul became angry and “eyed David from that day on”. He tried to kill David with his spear twice. He was consumed by both fear and jealousy and began actively trying to have David killed. Finally, David, Israel’s greatest warrior, the man after God’s own heart, anointed to be the next king had to run for his life, leave his country and his family and eventually ended up all alone in a cave. This was not at all what he had envisioned when the anointing oil was running down his head, when Goliath was falling, and the Philistines were fleeing. This was not what he had expected when he was eating at King Saul’s table or playing his harp for the troubled leader of Israel. David knew that God’s plan for his life was the throne, what he didn’t expect was that the path to the throne would first take him to the cave.

Psalm 142 tells us about David’s state of mind and condition of heart: “With my voice I cry out to the LORD; with my voice I plead for mercy to the LORD. I pour out my complaint before him; I tell my trouble before him.” Two interesting points, David was alone, and he was loud. He makes the point, twice, that he used his voice. In the pain of having his expectations unmet, his plans ruined and possibly believing that his promises had been lost, David talked out loud to God. 

We might say that he had no one else to talk to, but maybe that’s exactly how God planned it. If you go back and read I Samuel 19-22, you’ll see that when David left Israel he didn’t run right to the cave. First, he went to Nob and talked to the priest, getting bread and a sword. Then he went to Gath, in the land of the Philistines and tried to find refuge and community among his enemies. It was not until he realized that Gath was just as unsafe for him as Saul’s house that he finally ended up in the cave, alone with God, that he finally ended up where he needed to be, where God desired for him to be. In that cave David opened his heart and he opened his mouth. I know there are a lot of us who process things verbally, who bounce things off others, who just need to talk about things, and I do believe those are all healthy.  I also believe that for us who belong to God through salvation in Jesus, those things should all be secondary. 

David had literally been running for his life and, in my opinion, everything he had done until he got to the cave had been wrong, had been him trying to figure things out for himself, in a lot of ways trying to avoid the cave. But it’s in the cave where we can finally raise our voices to God, we can cry out, we can plead, we can even complain and tell God about the trouble in our lives and our troubled hearts. David didn’t need advice, he didn’t need encouragement, he didn’t need support, he needed to be alone with God, he needed to unload his heart to God, and he needed to remember God’s heart for him. 

From complaint and trouble comes one of David’s most underrated verses, “When my spirit faints within me, you know my way!” Once David unloaded all the things that troubled his heart, the fear and doubt, the anxiety and disappointment, how unfair the situation and how real the pain, he was able to remember that he was only in the cave because the cave was a part of God’s plan. We often think good things come to us, and bad things come against us. Plenty is God’s plan but lack is an attack of the enemy. Harvest is God’s will, but famine is a sign that we’ve missed God. But Paul told the Philippians that he could do all things, including hunger and plenty, abundance and need through Christ who gave him strength. He told the Corinthians that he had received “a messenger from Satan” to keep him from being conceited so that the power of Christ might rest upon him. He had learned from David that the cave was as much God’s plan as the throne, that alone with God was even more important than surrounded by friends, that even when his plans were ruined, God’s will was being accomplished. 

David cried out to God, “You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.” The first line makes sense, David needed refuge, he needed protection and provision, he needed someplace to hide, to process his thoughts, to unload his heart, to remember the truths that his runaway emotions were trying to cover over. It was in that place of refuge that he remembered the truth that would carry him through, that God was not the One who turned around what was intended for evil, but the One who intended everything for good, even those things that he never saw coming, couldn’t understand and didn’t believe he deserved. He remembered that God was his portion. 

What does that mean, for God to be our portion? I think it’s a shift from “God will” to “God is”. It’s when this relationship with God that we talk about so much becomes not just our priority but our joy. It’s when we come to believe that He formed us in our mother’s wombs, He wrote our days in His book, He orders our steps and guides our paths, our lives are not our own, they belong to Him, and He lovingly is in control of them. David remembered that he had never expected to be king when he was shepherding his father’s sheep, God had done that. So now that he was hiding in a cave, far from where he expected or even thought he deserved to be, maybe God had done that as well. Why do we thank God when we understand, enjoy and agree with the steps He leads us in, but then panic, fear and doubt when those steps are not what we wanted or expected? Could it be because the destination is the portion we are living for? David learned how to be king while hiding in a cave because he learned that belonging to God was greater than anything that could ever belong to him. He learned that nothing was greater than being loved by God. He learned that being rejected by everyone could not diminish the security of being accepted by God. He learned that the joy of salvation far exceeded every grief of this world. He learned that none of his disappointments disqualified God from His goodness or David from any of God’s promises. Sometimes that path to the throne leads us through some caves, in those places we have the opportunity make God our portion by surrendering our plans and trusting His establishing of our steps.