June 8 – Never ashamed

Those who look to him for help are happy; their faces are not ashamed.  (Psalm 34:5  NET)

It’s not God’s will for us to be miserable. He wants us to be happy, to be unashamed, to be filled with His presence, and to be victorious against our problems and enemies. Todays psalm (and Psalm 56) were written after King David was captured in Gath — what is now the Gaza Strip — a Philistine territory where Goliath had been born. In order to avoid being killed or imprisoned he pretended to have lost his mind, started speaking incoherently, scribbled on walls, and drooled on his beard. The officers of the King of Gath wanted to kill him because they recognized who he was, a powerful commander in Saul’s army. But the king dismissed him, thinking that he had lost his mind and was no longer useful to anyone.

This was a humiliating time for David. He must have been tempted to feel weak and alone. His own king and father-in-law (Saul) wanted to kill him out of jealousy, and at that moment he had resorted to hiding among the enemy to survive. But right after this experience David formed an army of warriors that eventually swelled to 600 men — a small army that no one could defeat. Most probably many of his trusted officials and commanders in the future came from this initial group of men that gathered at the cave were David started hiding out.

David declares that those who look to God for help are happy, that their faces are not ashamed. This doesn’t mean that we will not go through unhappy, shameful times, but it does mean that those times will be temporary stops on our way to ultimate victory in heaven and here on earth. When we look to God for help, realizing that we do not have what it takes to overcome, we are manifesting humility. David felt this in the enemy’s camp… all alone, surrounded by enemies whose brothers and fathers he had killed. Only God could save him from that situation. And when we reach that same point in life, when we realize that we are bankrupt, physically and spiritually, and need God’s power and character to continue, that is when our situation can be flipped and our victory come rushing in.

At those times when things look darkest, if we look to God for help in spite of how everything looks, God will be obligated to come through for us and provide a way out. Determine that you are going to be happy, that your face will be unashamed.