My wife and I are reading through the Psalms in our evening reading and occasionally a nugget of the Psalms jumps out of the page. Don’t you love it when, after years of reading the “Old Book” passages become alive, reinforcing old teachings or simply warming your heart.
This is the book of Psalms, and it is rich.
I pray I can communicate a portion of the blessing we receive from this wonderful book.
Psalm 56:8-11
8 You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?
9 Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call. This I know, that God is for me.
10 In God, whose word I praise, in the LORD, whose word I praise,
11 in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?
David speaks of the personal record the Lord is maintaining of his king, though he is but a wreckless fugitive from the current monarch.
The term “tossings” is interesting in that it may also be rendered as wanderings. This seems to fit the situation David is in, for at this point in his escape from Saul, I am not convinced he has a plan, a strategy of getting the upper hand. David is in reaction mode and the Lord is keeping track, noting the history David is making, recording his actions and paths.
Not only is the Lord recording the way David is taking in flight from Saul, but also the emotional burden he is experiencing. David was not a man that shied away from his emotions, for he spoke of his tears numerous times in the Psalms. David speaks of the Lord keeping his tears in a bottle, and recording both his physical and emotional journey in “your book”.
Surely to mention a book is a poetic description of God’s memory. A book, when referring to God’s record of our actions or attitudes, or of our destinies, is not for God’s benefit but for ours. We are the ones with weak memories and incapacity to store knowledge. A book is simply a crutch for us. God needs no such thing, but when David brings this word picture to our mind, we should think of it as the record God has at the time of writing.
A quick question for my reader. Does God blot souls out of His book? Consider Exodus 32:33.
Exodus 32:33 But the LORD said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book.
My apologies for veering from the Psalm we are considering, but the question is puzzling.
No matter, for this Psalm admonishes us to trust in God, in fear and in praise, for what can man do unto us? As a matter of fact, Paul took this concept and expanded it to anyone (including spirit beings) as being impotent against us in our victory in Christ.
Romans 8:31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
Romans 8:32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
Romans 8:33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.
Romans 8:34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died–more than that, who was raised–who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
Romans 8:35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
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