Giving Up!
By Julia Fowler, Worship Arts Pastor
Text: Psalm 61:1-8,
“1-2God, listen to me shout, bend an ear to my prayer. When I'm far from anywhere, down to my last gasp, I call out, "Guide me up High Rock Mountain!" 3-5 You've always given me breathing room, a place to get away from it all, A lifetime pass to your safe-house, an open invitation as your guest. You've always taken me seriously, God, made me welcome among those who know and love you. 6-8 Let the days of the king add up to years and years of good rule. Set his throne in the full light of God; post Steady Love and Good Faith as lookouts, And I'll be the poet who sings your glory—and live what I sing every day.”
This is a great text for us to look at this week. I love that in the worst of times (and in the best of times) God is never more than a cry away – in fact he is even closer than that. My guess is that when David wrote this particular Psalm he might have been hiding out in a cave. Probably surrounded by bat poop, damp wet, hadn’t showered in a while and I’m sure that loin cloth probably needed a good soaking, and yet he chooses to yes, acknowledges his frustrations, but also acknowledge his trust in an awesome providing, nurturing, and stable God. Giving up just wasn’t an option he was willing to entertain.
David makes the choice again to put his focus on God instead of his circumstances. This doesn’t mean and it certainly doesn’t suggest a dismissal or a ‘brushing under the rug’ mentality to life or the problems he realistically had to face. David is very open with God – always taking him his feelings, his circumstances and frustrations, but he is equally mindful to re-focus his line of site back on the main goal. David recognized his mission in life was going to incur some painful bruising but that in the end he would always have a lifetime pass to your [God’s] safe-house, and that in the end God was his strength and purpose for existing anyway.
You and I incredibly have this same opportunity—God awaits our arrival at his lap. He’s betting on our being victorious and he will help us in the exact times we need it, if we will choose to put our hope, our trust in him and decide on never giving up!
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