Faint, Not!

It’s happened to you – you’re up against a wall, have a deadline to meet, more on you plate than you can chew – you know one of those kinds of seasons. We all have those times when you look at a project that needs to be done and just looking at you makes you nearly faint, for you just know that you can never complete something of that magnitude.

David, the Shepherd King felt the same way. He was anointed King after all of his brothers who seemed far more suited were overlooked. Things seemed to be going his way for a while; he won a huge victory against a giant, got the king’s daughter for a wife. He moved into the palace,  soothed the king to sleep with his music, things were going great. Then the very one who invited him to come to the palace, decided he wanted David killed. Out of this trying season when he was on the run from his father-in-law Saul, the Psalms were born. One such Psalm speaks loudly to any who is feeling rejected:

I would have fainted, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living; Psalm 27:13 (NKJV)

It was David’s steadfast belief in the goodness of the Lord watching over his life that kept him going, for years not seeing the end of his running from Saul.

As I meditated on this, I realized that this can also apply to a present victory. For when we see VICTORY over our situation, this can also be a day of reckoning. Read how Eugene Peterson"s The Message writes the same verse:

I’m sure now I’ll see God’s goodness in the exuberant earth. Stay with God! Take heart. Don’t quit. I’ll say it again: Stay with God.

It’s even clearer here that David sees (and we can see) that God’s love and His goodness is in the NOW! If we stay with God, if we persevere, and most importantly don’t quit, then we will both see and know that goodness,

Maria

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