Prayers in crises

I am currently reading the Bible bit by bit in chronological order...and it remains exciting to read the historical books and the accompanying poetry (songs and prayers) together. In the last few days it was 1 Samuel. It tells how David is called by God to be the future king, which triggers jealousy and even murder attempts from the incumbent Saul. David has to flee.

Around a dozen chapters tell of betrayal, ingratitude, lack of understanding, confusion, years on the run, hiding in caves and deserts and abroad. Not exactly what one imagines when one is called by God to be king - the small print was probably not in the recruitment contract.

What impressed me: in the middle of this time, David wrote songs full of emotional transparency. He wrote and shouted out his anger, his despair, his tiredness - and his trust in God. He not only waited for a good outcome and prayed for it, but he held on to God IN the situation and found peace there. That is something I would like to learn from him: Not just to hope that God will change a situation and solve problems, but to find rest with God IN the situation.

We still draw on David's trials today. What he went through and HOW he dealt with it became fruitful for his life - and spoke into the lives of millions of other people who found comfort and strengthening of their faith in his words - something in Psalm 27: „The Lord is my light and my salvation, of whom shall I be afraid...the Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid.“ He didn't write this on the balcony of his villa - but in the middle of his escape.

Presumably 14 psalms - that's almost 10% of all the psalms contained in the Bible - were written during the time of persecution and flight: Psalm 7, 17, 27 (one of my favourites!), 31, 34, 35, 52, 56, 59, 63, 120, 140, 141, 142. It's worth reading the history and the Psalms on this - I think.