Word of Encouragement (12/06/2023)

"Then the earth reeled and rocked; the foundations of the heavens trembled and quaked, because he was angry. ⁹ Smoke went up from his nostrils, and devouring fire from his mouth; glowing coals flamed forth from him. ¹⁰ He bowed the heavens and came down; thick darkness was under his feet. ¹¹ He rode on a cherub and flew; he was seen on the wings of the wind. ¹² He made darkness around him his canopy, thick clouds, a gathering of water. ¹³ Out of the brightness before him coals of fire flamed forth. ¹⁴ The LORD thundered from heaven, and the Most High uttered his voice. ¹⁵ And he sent out arrows and scattered them; lightning, and routed them. ¹⁶ Then the channels of the sea were seen; the foundations of the world were laid bare, at the rebuke of the LORD, at the blast of the breath of his nostrils. (2 Sam. 22:8-16)

Here, David describes in a multitude of metaphors how the LORD responded to his prayer. He does so in nine verses. These metaphors include the rocking of the earth, quaking of the foundations of heaven due to His anger against David’s enemies; smoking from His nostrils and devouring fire for His mouth, glowing coals flaming from Him; bowing of the heavens and the coming of thick darkness; God riding on a cherub, on the wings of the wind; gathering of thick, dark clouds of rain and storm; flaming forth of coals of fire from His presence; thundering of His voice from heaven; the arrows of lightning; exposing of the channels of the sea and the foundations of the world at the rebuke of the LORD. Compare these to the four metaphors David used in the previous verse to describe his distress—the waves of death, the torrents of destruction, the cords of Sheol, and the snares of death.

Simply by looking at this quantitative difference, we can see how much greater God is in comparison to our distress, however dire it may seem. The help God sends to David is almost overkill. Remember that this is the confession David makes as he looks back on his life. Most of us won’t be able to imagine how overwhelming and terrifying his distresses were—how close he came to death, how close he came to losing everything he cherished, how utterly alone he felt at times, etc. We know what it’s like when we are amid our trials—how slow the day goes by, how dark the night seems, how small we feel, how heavy our hearts are, how the dark tunnel we are trudging along seems to have no end, etc. When we are in distress, a day feels like a thousand years.

But as David looks back on his life, he realizes that his distress was merely a “light momentary affliction” compared to “an eternal weight of glory” God has in store for him. What made his distress so much worse was his myopic vision: not seeing what God had in store for him, he absolutized the momentary affliction he saw in the present as if it would last forever or end his life. But when God came to his rescue and delivered him, he saw how skewed his perspective was. It was so because he trusted what he saw with his myopic vision more than the promise of God’s faithfulness to him.

What are you going through these days? Do you find yourself in distress as David was? If you can identify with David’s distress, you can also identify with David’s praise of God. How it is will not always be. Temporarily, things can get even worse. But God will come to your rescue. In patiently waiting for God, let us remind ourselves that our hope is in the “eternal weight of glory,” not in the temporary reliefs we experience in this life. In this world, what goes up has to come down as what goes down often bounces back. That is why our hope cannot be about going up as we cannot despair when things go south. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus showed that our hope is not in this world but in the life to come. Not only our distress but also this life itself is momentary in comparison to the eternal life to come. Let us not lose heart. Let us fix our hope in Jesus Christ and endure our trials with steadfastness and joy, springing up from our living hope.