Psalm 142

The next Psalm is Psalm 142. Once again, we have a psalm of David. He's coming to the Lord in this psalm, and declaring the Lord to be his only source for deliverance and protection. That's really the sense of this psalm that you'll notice the title of the psalm says when he was in the cave. Well, there was a lot of times David was living in caves, during that period of time when Saul was hunting him down like an animal. So, he's most likely, in that time of his life, on the run, if you will, and he's crying out to the Lord. I want you to notice how he puts the Lord or sets the Lord up in this prayer as the only way that he's going to be taken care of. He says in verse 1:

Notice that: I tell God my troubles. Do you tell God your troubles? Can you talk to Him about your troubles without necessarily even asking for anything? Can you just go to Him and talk? Can you go to Him and just say, I’m just really having a rough day. I just need to talk to You about this. Do you have that kind of a relationship with the Lord, that you can just tell Him things, talk to Him about what's happening in your life? That's what David is doing. He's pouring out his complaint. He says, I'm going to tell you all my troubles. One thing good about God is He never gets bored and He never gets tired of hearing from you. The rest of us can. I'm not saying we do. We have that potential, but God never will. Verse 3, he says:

David is telling the Lord that he has no one but God. He's crying to the Lord. He's complaining to the Lord because the Lord is it. And that's why he says in verse 5:

Therefore, he says: “6 Attend to my cry, for I am brought very low!” And I particularly like what he says at the end of verse 6; he says:

David was a warrior. He was a fighter. David was a scrapper. He knew what it was to battle in the power of the Lord; and yet he also knew when he was outmatched personally. He tells the Lord right here that his persecutors are too strong for him. Have you ever told the Lord that what you're going through is too strong for you? It's too big or it's too much. Have you ever told Him that? It's a very freeing thing to do, frankly, to simply tell the Lord I'm facing this situation and it's bigger than I am, and I don't have the power to face it. I don't have the power to overcome it, so I'm coming to You, and I'm asking for Your strength. You are my portion in the land of the living. And look at verse 7; he says:

Apparently, David felt like this cave, in which he was hiding and probably trying to stay safe, was like a prison. He says in the middle of verse 7:

And once again, David ends his prayer with one of these statements of confidence—because you can tell he's not in a very good mood. He's feeling pretty vulnerable. He's telling the Lord, You're the only one to take care of me. He says, look around, there's nobody here. There's nobody else to take care of me. It's just You. And he's saying, God, I need You to attend to my cry. I need You to deliver me. I need You to take care of me. These people are too strong for me, but You will deal bountifully with— and by the way, bountifully means generously, lavishly —You will deal in a very generous way with me. And that is his confidence. And so, ending that prayer with confidence again. So powerful. So important.