{"id":1851,"date":"2014-05-13T15:31:21","date_gmt":"2014-05-13T19:31:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/?p=1851"},"modified":"2014-05-13T15:31:21","modified_gmt":"2014-05-13T19:31:21","slug":"he-knows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/?p=1851","title":{"rendered":"He Knows"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"i_saw_that\"<\/a>\u201cYou have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

(Psalm 56:8)<\/p>\n

Pain is no phantom. It is a real enemy and a persistent goad to our souls. If it isn\u2019t always excruciating, it is, at least a burr buried in the weave of our hearts, annoying and inescapable.<\/p>\n

David wrote Psalm 56 out of pain. In this case his present pain was more than irritating; it was a spike of the highest order. It was \u201cwhen the Philistines seized him in Gath,\u201d according to the ancient title ascribed to the psalm text (cf. 1 Sam. 21:10-11). Life was at its lowest ebb for David. He had fled jealous King Saul\u2019s murderous plots and in desperation had sought refuge in the hometown of Goliath (17:4). What is worse, David strode into town with the giant\u2019s own sword strapped to his side (21:9; 22:10)!<\/p>\n

How bad must things be to find your last best hope in the hometown of the fallen hero in your greatest military exploits?<\/p>\n

Things didn\u2019t go well for David in Gath and he had to play the madman to get away (21:12-15). Fleeing to a cave, he threw himself within and cried out to God (22:1a). Psalm 56 is the result.<\/p>\n

The prayer-song is predictably laced with anguish. But there is faith as well. Twice David prayed, \u201cWhen I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me?\u201d (vv.3-4, cf. vv.10-11).<\/p>\n

Did you catch that? \u201cWhen I am afraid \u2026 I shall not be afraid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Umm \u2026 what?<\/i><\/p>\n

How\u2019s that work? It could come in handy.<\/p>\n

The full answer is beyond the scope of this short article (see chapter 2 of my book Praying Through<\/i><\/a> for a longer answer), but a good bit of it comes from the truth about God that David worshipfully rested upon. Simply stated: He knows.<\/i><\/p>\n

David prayed, \u201cYou have kept count of my tossings.\u201d In his heart of hearts he believed that not one step of his wanderings, not one anxious flip-flop in the midst of a sleepless night had gone unnoticed by God.<\/p>\n

David told God, [You] \u201cput my tears in your bottle.\u201d Every tear that David had shed was kept as a treasure, precious to God, somewhere in His great bottle of sorrows.<\/p>\n

David confidently asked, \u201cAre they not in your book?\u201d David knew that every salty drop meticulously had been noted down and divinely kept in a sacred record of all his distresses.<\/p>\n

Does Jesus care when my heart is pained<\/p>\n

To deeply for mirth and song;<\/p>\n

As the burdens press, and the cares distress,<\/p>\n

And the way grows weary and long?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Does Jesus care when my way is dark<\/p>\n

With a nameless dread and fear?<\/p>\n

As the daylight fades into deep might shades<\/p>\n

Does He care enough to be near?<\/p>\n

\u00a0The hymn writer\u2019s answer is an echo of David\u2019s own conclusion and exudes his full confidence!<\/p>\n

Oh, yes, He cares;<\/p>\n

I know He cares, His heart is touched with my grief;<\/p>\n

When the days are weary, the long nights dreary,<\/p>\n

I know my Savior cares.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There are moments when that\u2019s all we have \u2013 the confident knowledge that whatever else may be true, He knows. And, wonderfully, that is enough for now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cYou have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?\u201d (Psalm 56:8) Pain is no phantom. It is a real enemy and a persistent goad to our souls. If it isn\u2019t always excruciating, it is, at least a burr buried in the weave of our hearts, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,59,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-psalms","category-sanctification","category-suffering","post-preview"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgYGxX-tR","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1851"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1854,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1851\/revisions\/1854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}