Davids says, “Oh, that I had the wings of a dove! I would fly away and be at rest. I would flee far away and stay in the desert; I would hurry to my place of shelter, far from the tempest and storm.” (Psalm 55:6-8)
John Wesley wrote in his diary, “My brother Charles often said, ‘If the Lord would give me wings, I would fly.” I used to tell him “ If the Lord wants me to fly, I will trust Him for the wings”. That is one way of looking at what to do if we had wings like the birds. But David was thinking about another way of using them if he had wings. He wanted to fly away from the situation to a far away place to escape his problems.
Everyone who lives a normal life will have problems and chellenges. Even the most successful people are faced with challenges. What varies is how each person responds to the problems. You have heard people saying “life is not easy". If there were no problems, where would be the challenge and thrill of life? If it would be all easy, then where should be all the fun?. Life is all about dealing with all the challenges and still enjoying it. We are all stuck with the things in our daily life. Whether it is a burdensome responsibility, or a difficult marriage, whether it is joblessness, or a deep loneliness, whether it is a painful sickness or grief of separation, each of us here has faced it or will face some or all of these.
Psalm 55 is a song written by David. He was hurt in heart by feelings of distress and treachery of friends and his own dear one, his son. David pours out his heart because a close friend has betrayed him. This is considered to be his son Absalom who joined with Ahithophel to dethrone David, the incident which is mentioned in 2 Sam 16. David wrote freely and openly about his circumstances: Violence, oppression, and strife surrounded him on all sides, stirred up by the disloyalty of an old friend (55:8-14). Fear and terror, pain and trembling, anxiety and restlessness overwhelmed him (vv.4-5). That is when he longed to have wings so that he could fly away to a far off place.
A survey asked a group of Christian athletes how they would respond to a particular disappointment in their career. Their responses included fear, anger, self-pity, aggression, despair, abusive behavior, apathy, and turning to God. That is a reflection of what generally all of us will do. We ignore them. We deny them. We run from them. We rationalize them. We try to run away from our problems by ignoring them.
Physically running away is a commonly used option. Children run away. Some people will move to another location thinking their problems will be left behind. Others will jump from job to job in an attempt to find a company that isn't filled with bad people . A third approach is frequently changing relationships in search of a situation that doesn't have any problems. We all know people who have divorced and married 3,4 and 5 times. Problems are often caused by how you act and who you are. Therefore, they will follow you wherever you go. There are some problems that may be solved by changing your location. But if you find that you encounter similar problems wherever you go, running is obviously not the answer.
Running away is not always literally changing your physical location. Rather than dealing with a problem, a person puts energy into something totally unrelated. Experts call this 'displacement activity'. Anything can be a displacement activity. Organizing your home or office, hobbies, sports, socializing, travel, volunteering, or school can all serve this purpose. Displacement activities, when taken on their own merits, are legitimate pursuits. When used as an escape, they prolong problems. Obviously, there is nothing wrong with productive, benevolent, or leisure activities. It's when you turn to an activity to avoid dealing with an issue, that you do yourself a disservice. Although there is nothing wrong with your activity, you are using it to avoid facing your problems
You can run but sooner or later, you run out of places to run to. Running away from your problems is a race you will never win. Problems will follow you until you deal with them. There are those who turn to destructive behavior in the quest to run away from their problems. Whether it be drugs, alcohol, reckless gambling, inappropriate friendship or any other type of self-destructive behavior, a new set of issues is created. In addition to their original problems, they have dug a deeper hole for themselves. These individuals may even claim that they will stop their destructive behavior once their problems go away. Their problems won't fix themselves and will get worse. Subsequently, they will continue to spiral downward until they decide to end their harmful behavior and take a proactive role in their lives.
The prodigal son is an example of running away from responsibilities he did not want to deal with, only to find that the life in the far away land was more miserable. A college student was playing his music in the car in high volume. He said the brake pads in his car completely wore down. So, to avoid dealing with the fact that his brakes were about to completely give out, his “solution” was to turn up the radio in the car so loud that he wouldn’t hear the brakes grinding. The fact is that it will not only damage his car more, but also put his and others’ life in danger. The prophet Jonah was asked to go to Nineveh to preach, instead he boarded a ship to Tarshish and went to sleep, putting his life and a lot of innocent people in danger.
David prays to God to destroy the problems so he can be at ease. This strategy is to blame others for your predicament. In Psalm 55:15 David is asking God "God, Let death take up my enemies by surprise, let them go down to the grave". We honestly wish and pray to God to destroy our enemies, to destroy them. Some people blame their problems on someone else—an enemy, a friend, a neighbor, a family member, or the devil. If you believe someone else is responsible for creating your situation, then obviously you are not responsible for fixing it. This conclusion is false. You are not a victim of circumstances. It's your life. You are solely responsible for its direction.
Jesus said to pray for your enemies not to destroy them, but that God will not punish them and change their hearts. The Koran teaches "Slay your enemies wherever you find them", which was being abused for killing Americans by Muslim extremists. But Jesus taught in Matthew 5: 43-45 "You have heard that it was said, `Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." Anger only brings hatred and hatred brings enmity and bitterness. But forgiveness brings resolve and peace of mind. We try to figure out how and why we got hurt! There is a saying " He who angers you controls you." The enemy is at work to make you angry and become filled with hate.
Some people blame God for their problems. Some blame God and get angry against God and Church.
Job was blaming God for his troubles. Overwhelmed, Job cried out, “God has wronged me and drawn his net around me” (Job 19:6). This is due to our limited perception of the problem.
I read about horses that despite having the largest eyes of all land mammals, horses have poor eyesight and can see fewer colors than humans. Because of this, they can’t always identify objects on the ground. When they see a pole, they don’t know if it’s a pole. They can easily step on a large snake that might harm them. For this reason, until they are properly trained, horses are easily frightened and quick to run away. We may feel like Job who misunderstood his troubles and wished he’d never been born. Since he couldn’t see that it was Satan who was trying to break him down, he feared that the Lord, in whom he had trusted, was trying to destroy him. Like Job’s vision, ours is limited. We want to blame God and His people and run away from the difficult situations that scare us. From God’s perspective, we are not alone. He understands what confuses and frightens us. He knows we are safe with Him by our side. This is our opportunity to trust His understanding God’s goodness.
David later experiences the comfort of God and acknowledges that only God can hanle his problems. He says in Psalm 55:22, "Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall." David realizes later on that his solutions are not going to solve his problems. He says " As for me I will call upon God and the Lord shall save me, morning and evening and at noon I will pray and cry loud for help. "A broken heart... I will not despise" [Psalm 51:17].
Instead of wishing for dove’s wings, believe God and He’ll give you eagle’s wings. "Those who hope in the Lord will gain new strength; they will sprout wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired." (Isaiah 40:31).
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