But As For Me

It was night.

Saul's men surrounded the house. There were footsteps outside the door. By morning, he would be dead. David knew this.

That night, he spoke to God.

Something was in the darkness.

He could hear it. But he could not see its face. He did not know which direction, or when it would move. A threat that comes head-on can at least be endured. Because you can see it. But this darkness could not be seen. He only knew it was there. Darkness is not frightening because it is dark. It is frightening because you do not know what is in it.

What they were after was not his wealth or his position. They sought "my soul" (v.3). His very existence.

There was something more terrifying.

Their mouths. Words gushed out like a spring. Not just once. They did not stop. They did not dry up. They did not rest. "The words of their lips" were swords (v.7). Every word that poured out had its own blade.

It was not weapons that made David a traitor. It was language — endless, surging, unstoppable.

He was wronged. He was innocent. "For my transgression, nor for my sin, O LORD" (v.3). And yet the words covered him. A prison built of language.

Then came their declaration. "Who doth hear?" (v.7) It was their certainty that God was silent. This single sentence opened the deepest darkness.

It seemed as though God was asleep.

David cried out. "Awake to help me, and behold" (v.4). He cried out again. "Awake" (v.5). The same word, twice, with different force. It was not that God was absent. It was that His presence could not be felt. Prayer met a sky that seemed sealed shut. Crying out brought back only echoes.

David was the anointed one. God had chosen him as king. And yet now his enemies surrounded his house. The gap between promise and reality had stretched to its limit. "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Ps. 22:1). The same tone.

When evening came, they returned. They "returned at evening" and "made a noise like a dog, and go round about the city" (v.6). The sound of a sea in violent upheaval, the sound of bowels in anguish. That sound shook the whole night. The movement of a beast closing in, tightening its circle around its prey. This scene appears in verse 6, and again in verse 14. The exact same words. Last night it was so. Tonight it is so again. The night continued.

Unseen terror, the blade of unrelenting words, the howling that returned with every night, and a God who was silent. This was David's night.

Nothing had changed. And yet David opened his mouth.

But as for me. (v.16)

He was not describing his circumstances. He was declaring where he stood.

Then the words came.

"But I will sing of thy power; yea, I will sing aloud of thy mercy in the morning" (v.16).

I will sing. Not yet accomplished. The morning had not come. The dogs were still howling. And yet David sang the morning's song right then. It was not that morning came and then he sang. He sang, and walked toward the morning.

He had a name by which he called God. "The God of my mercy" (v.10). He did not call on God out of feeling. He called on God out of covenant. I cannot feel You right now. But You are the God who has made promises. I am here on the ground of that covenant.

And there was one thing more. "God shall let me see my desire upon mine enemies" — and before that: "The God of my mercy shall prevent me" (v.10). Prevent — יְקַדְּמֵנִי, yeqaddemenî — to go before, to arrive first. Not merely to accompany. God is already there before I arrive. On that road where he had to flee, in the tomorrow he had not yet seen, God was already there. David was not courageous because he was strong. It was because God was already on that road ahead of him.

Our nights come this way too.

With the terror of those who lie in wait "to wait for my soul" (v.3), with the blade of words from lips that are "swords" (v.7), surging without ceasing, with the silence that returns even when we cry, awake, awake. "Who doth hear?" (v.7) — when that question echoes within us, the place where David stood becomes our place.

But as for me.

It is not yet morning. And yet God has already gone ahead into the darkness I am about to enter.

David's song was right. Morning came.

If it is night for you now,

but as for me.

Questions for Reflection

Are you afraid of something you can't see, only feel? What is it doing inside you?

David was buried not by weapons but by words. Are there words covering you right now — someone else's, or your own?

David cried "Awake!" twice. Have you ever felt the heavens were closed? How were you calling on God in that silence?

David sang the morning song before morning came. Where are you now — singing, or still in a night where even "but as for me" won't come?