[22] In my alarm I said, “I am cut off from your sight!” Yet you heard my cry for mercy when I called to you for help.
When we have hard times, or times of waiting, or times of silence; we feel like God has left us. In moments of despair we feel like He has given up on us and we are alone. When we are tired, or unwell, or overworked, feeling like God’s presence has departed is too often the outcome.
In these short words, David gives us the answer to these moments of feeling lost, “Keep praying.”
David says he felt cut off from God’s sight, then he says God heard his cry for help, this shows that in this time David kept praying. That is the answer. You will not always FEEL God, but that does not mean you stop talking with Him. No matter what is drawing you away, look to Jesus and keep talking with Him and worshipping Him, your breakthrough will come.

Take away:

Even when we feel far from God He is still with us. Keep spending time with Him no matter how you feel, even if His face is hard to see. Your breakthrough is coming, keep pressing in to your savior.

Psalms 29:11 NIV
[11] The Lord gives strength to his people; the Lord blesses his people with peace.
Peace. It may be the most fleeting and fragile thing we seek. It’s here today and gone tomorrow depending on what happens. It can be broken and chased away by small and simple things.
Yet, God gives His people strength to endure what shakes their peace and He restores peace to them.
Things in our lives and our days may try to crush us and take our peace, but if our peace is from God then we are secure in Him.

Take away:

The peace the world offers will not last, but the peace of God is forever.

Psalms 27:10 NIV
[10] Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.
We live in a time when acceptance is almost demanded. I am ____ you must accept me. However, even in our country many people who come to love Jesus lose the acceptance of those around them. Their friends desert them, their own families disown them. It is not as bad as the countries where people are in danger for their lives and are beaten and imprisoned for Jesus, but losing the love and acceptance you once knew from others can still be devastating. What of the child whose parents are aggressive against her faith in Jesus and ban her from reading her Bible and going to church. Where does she go? She must live at home, but home does not want her for who she is in Christ.
What of the boy who is no longer permitted on the basketball team because is honest about his faith, his friends turn on him and his teachers abuse him verbally. Where does he go? You must attend school but school is no longer safe.
It may not look like these examples. It may look much worse or not nearly as bad. Yet what do we do when those we trust leave us behind?
David tells us. Even if those I love and rely on desert me, the Lord will receive me.
Even if all those around shun us and we look alone, we have a safe and secure place with Jesus. He is a friend who never leaves us.

Take away:

Sometimes it can be hard to be a Christian in an anti-Christian world. It can be lonely and painful. Yet Jesus is always on our side. As the old song says, “He’s as close as the mention of His name.”
Do not be troubled when people leave you. Trust Jesus and turn to Him. He is there for you.

[12] My feet stand on level ground; in the great congregation I will praise the Lord.
My feet stand on level ground. Level ground is an interesting thing. We often take it as a symbol of being safe to move forward where you will not fall or trip. However, that works mainly for walking, but what about standing? When you stand still on level ground you can remain there a long time. Secure. But when you stand, say on an incline, or with one foot on higher ground than the other, it does not take long for pain and stiffness, as well as a tired ache, to creep in.
But when we stand on the plans of God we stand on level ground.

Take away:

Waiting to move forward can be painful and tiring, but when you wait on the level ground of God’s plan it brings peace and security.

Psalms 25:8 NIV
[8] Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.

Even David, who God says was a man after His own heart, knew he was prone to sin.  But instead of claiming that he had no place with God or trying to warp God to fit his sinful ways He asked God to help him and praised God for something we forget, He instructs sinner in the ways that are upright. We are all sinners in one aspect or another, yet God takes the time to be patient with us and to show us how to live right.
Take away:

Just because you feel like you are too sinful for God to love you does mean you actually are. He loves you very much, and when you decide to change you won’t have to do it alone, Jesus will guide you and be with you. Everytime you try and fall, everytime you go back to your old ways and regret it and come back to God again, He still wants you and He still loves you.

Psalms 24:8
Who is this king of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.

I love this Psalms. Petra used to have this as a song and everytime I read it I can hear the lead singer’s voice. Besides being a great song, it’s also a powerful reminder of who God is. Strong and mighty. Mighty in battle.
We like to depict God as a passive because the thought of an all powerful God wielding His sword against the enemy is sort of really terrifying. For the enemy of God that is, but it should not scare us, in fact it should comfort us. God wielding His sword against those who would attack His people. The devil comes in like a marauder, but is driven out by the power of the King.

Take away:
God fights our battles. He is strong and brave. When I think of God battling for us, I see a powerful king returning from war as His children run up to Him and reach up their arms to be carried home. They do not know that their Father the King was out on the field of battle to protect them and their home, all they know is that they are safe and their big, strong father is holding them.

Psalms 23:5

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil, my cup runs over.

You anoint my head with oil.
In the heat of the summer I often find myself out in my pasture with a bottle of baby oil. Oil is good for so many thing that involves out door animals. For my horse I use it to get out burs, to shield his legs from fly eggs (yuck) to remove ticks some days (double yuck) to discourage flies. Oil is the farmer’s go to. It is the same with shepherds, they use oil for the same things I just named. Oil in Bible times was also often used for anointing and for greeting honored guests to a banquet, they would use special oil, (most likely not the value size bottle of Jameson that I buy).
So when David speaks of God anointing our heads with oil it can have multiple imagery.
God protects us from things that would harm us, He removes things that are bad that already cling to us, He anoints us as His children and as guests welcome at His banquet.

Take away:

God anoints us as His children, then proceeds to protect us and care for us.
There is another anointing in the Bible that is significant. When Mary anoints Jesus’s feet. We are anointed as God’s children because a long time ago His only begotten son went to

Psalms 22:1, 8, 16-18, 31 NIV

[1] My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish?

[8] “He trusts in the Lord,” they say, “let the Lord rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him.”

[16] Dogs surround me, a pack of villains encircles me; they pierce my hands and my feet.

[17] All my bones are on display; people stare and gloat over me.

[18] They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.

Do these words sound familiar? Here David calls on God to save him and he uses words we know as the pained cries of someone we love, Jesus.
Some like to say that Jesus was quoting the scriptures when He called to God that day, but I do not feel that is accurate. Rather those who say David prophesied about how Jesus (his descendant several generations removed) would die. The word “my God why have you forsaken me!” Are one thing, but the dividing of Jesus’s garment and casting lots for it, the piercing of His hands and feet, He did not quote this, it truly happened. Showing the potential accuracy of a prophecy being made.
However, these words are not our sole focus today. I want us also to consider how psalm 22 ends.

[31] They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!

The suffering Jesus went through was beyond horrible. Yet even the prophecy of it shows how the battle ends. “He has done it!!”

Jesus won the war that day and He stands as our savior. We are free because of Him!

Take away:

Death was not the end. Not for Jesus. He went to the cross knowing how it would all turn out.
It is good also to remember that, in His pain He cried to God, asking why He had been forsaken even though He knew and understood it. So when you are suffering and you cry out to God asking why He has left you abandoned, even though you know He is there with you, remember that you don’t have to he ashamed about that, because Jesus understands better than anyone. Unlike David, God truly did turn away from His son because He could not look at the sin that Jesus bore for us. Unlike David, Jesus died. Unlike anyone, Jesus rose three days later and saved us from our sins.