The Great Help We Need | Psalm 4:1
To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments. A Psalm of
David.
1 Answer me when I call, O God of my
righteousness!
You have
given me relief when I was in distress.
Be gracious
to me and hear my prayer!
We start a new psalm this week, but with some of the same
themes from Psalm 3. In fact, the occasion
may be the same, with David either on the run from Saul or Absalom. In any event, this psalm is meant to give us
peace during the troubles of life. We
begin to see that here.
When facing trouble,
remember what the Lord has done in the past.
In this first verse, David begins with a plea common to the Book of
Psalms—“Answer me when I call.” This isn’t
a call of vain desperation, because he looks back and sees that the Lord has
given him relief in the past. Literally,
he says, “You made room for me.” David
has been in tight spots in the past and the Lord granted him breathing
space.
When facing trouble,
remember also who the Lord is to you.
That is, remember what the Lord has revealed about Himself and us. Righteousness refers to God’s standard, and
how one should act in light of it; God will always do what is right, calling
His people to do the same (Lv 19:15). He’ll
judge the earth in righteousness (Ps 9:8; 96:13); God’s righteousness means judgment
for us.
Yet, David uses it here as a positive term, linking it with
salvation (cf. Jer 23:6). God reveals
this in the NT (Rm 1:17). First Corinthians 1:30 says, “And because of him you
are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and
sanctification and redemption.” For those
of us who have not lived the perfect righteousness of God, we find in Christ a
covering of righteousness.
David likewise sees the righteous Lord as the source of his
own righteousness. He asks the Lord as
such to be gracious—to show favor, though David doesn’t deserve it. Since God has delivered David in the past, he
has confidence, but he still petitions God.
God alone provides the great help we need in times of distress.
