These psalms share the common theme of David complaining to God. Each one presents an example to us of situations in which we may find ourselves and how God would want us to respond, based on the example of the man after God’s own heart.
How does one set a guard over his mouth so that he is known as one who speaks well-spoken words, as David says in Psalm 141, and doesn’t complain or perpetuate the evil going on in this evil world? He takes his complaints and his cares to God rather than sharing them with men. I think also of Jesus, who left Heaven to live in this sin-cursed world, without a place to lay His head, with a group of followers who most of the time just didn’t get it. He probably spent so much time in prayer in part because He unburdened Himself to God. In I Peter 5:7 we are also invited to “Cast our cares on Him.” To whom do you unburden yourself?
Don’t let the repetition in Psalm 56 of David’s claim that he trusts God weary you; rather, recognize that as a key idea. My Bible has a footnote in the introduction to the psalm that references I Samuel 21:10- 12 as the incident “when the Philistines seized (David) in Gath.” Samuel tells us that David feared greatly in that situation. Was David a hypocrite, saying one pious thing in his psalm, and behaving differently in reality? Not at all. In his fear, he exercised his choice to put his trust in God and to be unafraid. We see the result in Samuel’s account: he was able to devise an ingenious scheme to escape the grasp of the oppressive, lurking Philistines.
David understood that God kept track of his tears. It’s not that God delighted in his tears, but that they were precious to Him, precious in the sense that He didn’t take them lightly, didn’t waste them. A pastor once told me that God doesn’t waste our pain; it is precious to Him. That truth arouses such love in me for Him.
David didn’t like where he was living as he wrote Psalm 120, and who could blame him, living in exile? We should experience the same in this world, because our home is in Heaven. And we shouldn’t be surprised that people want to stir up trouble with us. This psalm is a reminder that we are not alone when we are tired of life as a “stranger and alien: in a foreign land.
In Psalm 140 David asked for burning coals to fall on the heads of those who surround him, that they “be thrown into the fire, into miry pits, never to rise.” One reason he asked this isn’t necessarily for vindication, but so that “slanderers not be established in the land,” that justice be secured, and righteousness prevail. That’s one way we can reconcile the man after God’s own heart longing for evil to befall his enemies, while Jesus tells us to bless our enemies. As we are transformed by the Holy Spirit by the renewing of our minds, we will be more and more provoked by evildoers who try to stir up trouble. That’s a good thing!
Psalm 142 finds David in a cave in more ways than one. He had no refuge; what happened to God as his refuge? Again, he had to choose to let feeling follow faith. He was alone, with no one to be concerned for him. No one cared for his life. The people pursuing him were too strong for him. Do you ever feel that way? Have you ever felt so sad that there are no words? Here’s yet another example for us: he didn’t have much to say about it, but he cried out to God, in desperate need. When there are no words, we have these as a starting point: “Set me free from my prison, that I may praise your name.”