“What a contrast”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Tuesday, September 19, 2023
Psalm 62 (Forward, p. 52) CEV p. 590
Our psalmist David sets up some incredibly vivid and contrasting word pictures. He describes himself as feeling like ‘a shaky fence or a sagging wall’ (verse 3), and certainly anyone of us who have visited a derelict or abandoned property can immediately get a picture of what that is like: a fence that is tottering and about to collapse under its weight, or an ancient house that even the wind would seem to be able to collapse. But, have we ever felt this way—as if we simply could not hold on or hold up under the pressures or difficulties that we have been experiencing? If you have, you have a strong sense of what David is describing from his own life.
But then David also gives us a contrasting picture. (In other words, all is not lost). He describes God’s ever loving, ever present care, in other rather expressive terms:
“God alone is the mighty rock that keeps me safe and the fortress
where I am secure” (verses 2, 6);
“God saves and honours me. He is that mighty rock where I find
safety” (verse 7);
“Trust God, my friends, and always tell him each one of your
concerns. God is our place of safety” (verse 8).
(Just think of mighty fortresses like Edinburgh Castle or the
various castles Edward I established throughout Wales, for
a sense of what that is like!)
And contrast this with what David says about the human condition: “We humans are only a breath; none of us are truly great. All of us together weigh less than a puff of air” (verse 9).
No wonder he disparages some of the ‘tactics’, rather dishonest and treacherous ones at that, that some people resort to: “Don’t trust in violence or depend on dishonesty or rely on great wealth” (verse 10).
In fact, David would suggest that we not rely on any human endeavours or strategies to save or help us. Numerous times he stresses that God is our only hope:
“Only God can save me; and I calmly wait for him” (verse 1);
“God alone is the mighty rock that keeps me safe and the fortress
where I am secure” (verses 2, 6);
“Only God gives inward peace, and I depend on him” (verse 5)
Surely, this must give us pause, give us much room for thought, for many of us are quite accustomed to ‘running our own show’, to doing things in our own ways and in our own strength—that is, until these things come up ‘the beggar’, having not worked. Sometimes—far too often it would seem—that, and only then, is when we turn to God. So, maybe we need to borrow a page from David and go to God right away. As David says, God is always there to help us. Thanks be to God.
Forward notes: “in God is my safety and my honour; God is my strong rock and my refuge” (verse 7).
“When I juxtapose the imagery of Psalm 62:7, my first thought is of a cave, and comparing God to a cave gives me mixed feelings. On the one hand, caves terrify me, precisely because I do not trust the rocks above cavernous spaces to be strong. Whenever I drive through the tunnels cut into the mountains in Virginia, I pray that traffic keeps moving so that I do not have to be there a second longer.
“Yet I have also been amazed by a cave. When I toured Mammoth Cave in Kentucky as a child, its naturally cool air was a refreshing surprise. I was astonished by the intricate rock formations and could not fathom the long process it took for all those stalagmites and stalactites to develop. The cave was beautiful and magnificent to me.
“I don’t know if the psalmist had this metaphor in mind, but the image of a cave prompts me to reflect on God in a new way. It shows God’s strength in spaciousness, magnificence in myriad intricacies, and love as a dwelling place.”
Moving Forward: “What metaphors does Scripture encourage you to rethink?”