In the Lord I Take Refuge: 31 Days in the Psalms

Scripture: Psalms 1

The first psalm serves as the gateway to the entire book of Psalms, stressing that those who would worship God genuinely must embrace his Law (or Torah)—his covenant instruction founded on his redeeming grace. This psalm addresses topics also found in the Bible’s wisdom literature and makes them the subject of song. When we joyfully sing this psalm, its values become ours. We are changed. 

In a sustained contrast, Psalm 1 reminds us that, in the end, there are only two ways to live. And whatever else happens in our lives today, the crucial, bottom-line question is: which of the two ways described in this psalm will we embrace? Beneath the never-ending list of “to-do’s” clamoring for our attention lies the fundamental choice to receive instruction and influence either from God or fools. Will we listen to the voice of life or the voices of death? Will we breathe in God’s life-giving instruction, sinking deep roots (v. 3), or will we breathe in the empty instruction of those who “will not stand in the judgment” (v. 5)? Will the trials still to come in our lives prove us to be deep-rooted trees, incapable of being blown over, or will they show us to be chaff, blown away by the slightest breeze? 

Happily, this psalm and its two ways to live are not a choice between stoic obedience or gleeful disobedience. The first word of the psalm makes clear that true, solid happiness—what the Bible calls “blessedness”—is found in God and his Word. Verse 2 reiterates—“His delight is in the law of the Lord.” Nothing can compare with the blessedness—the fruitfulness, flourishing, prospering, and delightfulness of a life saturated with the Word of God. 

Walk with God. Soak in his Word. Take his yoke upon you (cf. Matt. 11:29). You will be blessed—truly happy, with happiness the winds of trial cannot blow away.

Scripture: Psalms 2

When we, as the people of God, sing Psalm 2, we remind ourselves of how God made David and his descendants to be kings, tasked with carrying out God’s redemptive purposes in the world. In the face of overwhelming opposition, this psalm exults in the promises made to the Davidic king at his coronation. With its prospect of a worldwide rule for the house of David, this psalm also looks to the future, when David’s ultimate heir, the Messiah, would indeed accomplish this. 

With the coming of the Messiah, this psalm’s triumphant portrait of the Davidic throne takes on heightened significance and finds its ultimate meaning. Believers today are the heirs of this psalm, and its promises come to rest on the worldwide church and its faith in the true and final Davidic heir, Jesus. Those who take refuge in him have found the only truly safe place in this broken world. Those who persist in resisting God and his rule, even if they are powerful “rulers of the earth,” will be finally defied and justly destroyed. 

Despite whatever tumults rock our lives today, David’s greatest son, Jesus himself, has been installed as the ruler of the world. One day this kingship will break open in universal acknowledgment and the universal execution of perfect justice. For now, we can go forth in the glad assurance that in Jesus, we will one day leave behind forever the futility of the present. Every injustice in our lives will be undone. 

Take heart. We are on the right side.

Scripture: Psalms 3

This is the first psalm with a title. We are told that David wrote this psalm as a response to the heart-wrenching experience of being violently pursued by his son, Absalom (see 2 Samuel 15–16). We see in this psalm how a man of God models genuine faith amid dire circumstances. What must it have been like to be murderously hunted by his own child? 

David felt utterly overwhelmed by the sheer weight of opposition: “Many are rising against me” (Ps. 3:1); “many thousands of people . . . have set themselves against me” (v. 6). 

What strengthens David, however, is not strength mustered up from within. What stabilizes him is not self-generated optimism. David knows that earthly help is worthless when the tidal waves of life threaten to overwhelm and drown us. Instead, he looks to God: “But you, O Lord, are a shield about me” (v. 3). This is the posture of faith. Only in this way does David’s internal frenetic anxiety die away so that he can sleep in peace once more (v. 5). Self-divesting trust in God is the channel through which the deliverance and power of God may flow. 

What threatens to overwhelm you today? We have an even greater source of calm than David did, for there is one who did not strike God’s enemies on the cheek (v. 7) but instead let himself be struck on the cheek. Indeed, he experienced the ultimate rejection, being nailed to a Roman cross. Jesus allowed himself to be truly overwhelmed by his enemies. The result is that believers can be confident that every overwhelming experience they face is from a loving Father to help them.

Scripture: Psalms 4

This psalm expresses quiet trust amid troubling circumstances, combining the classic psalm categories of “individual lament“ and “psalm of confidence.” Many take this psalm to be a companion to Psalm 3 because 4:8 seems to echo 3:5. Perhaps the two psalms were meant to be read at the beginning and end of a single day since the past tense of 3:5 sets Psalm 3 in the morning while the future tense of 4:8 sets Psalm 4 in the evening. 

Psalm 4 echoes the feelings of being overwhelmed expressed in the previous psalm. Here, however, David is in anguish not simply because of overwhelming opposition but because of the slander and taunting of his enemies. This is the pain not only of fear but of shame as well (v. 2). 

David expresses the battle that rages in our hearts at night as we lay our heads on the pillow. On one side is stacked up all of the clamoring accusations, misunderstandings, and painful words of the day—of actual people in our lives, of demonic attack, or of our fallen minds. On the other side is the Lord. Both beckon to us; both invite us to listen. In the darkness of that moment, David makes up his mind: he will trust in the Lord (v. 5). The result? A greater joy than any material prosperity could ever provide (v. 7); a peace that supplies contented sleep (v. 8). 

Trust in the Lord. He has set you apart for himself (v. 3). You are his. You have been united to his Son, and the sufferings of this present age can only heighten your future glory and joy (Rom. 8:18; 2 Cor. 4:16–18). Tonight, you may go to bed in peace. You could not be more secure.

Scripture: Psalms 5

This psalm is another individual lament and is the first instance of a psalm that includes prayers for the personal downfall of one’s enemies. Such psalms are not expressions of petty annoyances or insults but are cries to God for justice in the face of bloodthirsty and deceitful persecutors. 

This psalm is one of many places in the Bible where we can be greatly encouraged by the sheer earthiness of the Bible. Despite being the religious book of billions, the Christian Scriptures are not abstract or ethereal, disconnected from life’s visceral emotions and experiences in a fallen world. The Bible is concrete, tangible, and rooted in gritty reality. David is “groaning” (v. 1). Disgusted by the deceitful schemes of the wicked, he pleads with God for justice, for a righting of wrongs, for the evil of the wicked to be returned on their own head (v. 10). Such language—even more, such prayer—sounds abrasive to modern ears, immersed as we are in a culture of tolerant niceness. Yet David knows that for God to tolerate wickedness would undermine the very character of God and his righteous purposes for the world. 

Content to leave the punishment of all evil in God’s hands, David directs his heart elsewhere. He does not let thoughts of evildoers fester in his mind but finally rests in God, his refuge (vv. 11–12), who must do what is right. 

And so God did. At the climax of all of human history, God showed us just how concrete and tangible he was willing to become in the ultimate righting of all wrongs. Refusing to remain abstract or ethereal, the second person of the Trinity became one of us, knowing all of our weaknesses except sin. 

Are you groaning today? Your reigning Savior knows what that is like. He, too, groaned, on a cross, so that every groaning you now experience may result in your ultimate strengthening.

Scripture: Psalms 8

The Bible restores our human dignity, scarred but not lost in the fall. Alluding to the opening chapters of Genesis, where mankind is called to exercise dominion over the created order, David brings us to praise God for the remarkable care he has entrusted to us. He is the God of the heavens, having placed the stars in their orbits, yet he has entrusted to humanity the care of the earth. When he speaks of our being crowned “with glory and honor” (v. 5), David speaks of the image of God bestowed upon every human. 

The references to “foes,” “enemy,” and “avenger” in the course of praising God for his creation remind us that there was also a fall (v. 2; Gen. 3:1–24). Yet despite our fall into sin, God still dignifies his people as the stewards of his creation (Ps. 8:5–8; Gen. 1:28–31). 

And yet we need a Savior to overcome not only personal sin but also the fallen condition of the creation (Gen. 3:15, 18–19). By quoting this psalm, the writer of the book of Hebrews later clarifies that Christ, our Savior, is the perfect representation of the humanity described in this psalm (Heb. 2:6–8). 

The One through whom the world was created (John 1:3; Heb. 1:2) came to restore the image marred at the fall. Verses 1 and 9 of Psalm 8 not only serve as bookends for the psalm; they also anticipate the end of all things, when Christ’s enemies will be made a footstool for his feet, and his name will be majestic through all the earth (Eph. 1:22).

Scripture: Psalms 10

The tone of Psalm 10 turns sharply from the Psalms that have come just before. Here we find the psalmist distraught at the victimization of the helpless. And this cruelty seems to come not at the hand of foreign nations but at the hands of fellow Israelites—fellow members of the people of God. 

Seeing such evil carried out against fellow humans—fellow members of God’s people—can easily cause deep cynicism and emotional fatigue. How does one persevere in the face of horrors done to others, especially horrors perpetrated by those who ought to have been the kindest? Everything in us screams out for justice. 

David feels the same way, but he realizes that “you [the Lord] do see, for you note mischief and vexation, that you may take it into your hands” (v. 14). The Lord will “do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed” (v. 18). God will, one day, right all wrongs, straighten out all that is bent, and rinse this world clean of all injustice. 

And how do we know this? Because in the middle of human history, God proved the lengths to which he was willing to go to undo injustice. He sent his own Son, the one man who was ever truly just, to go to a cross and swallow all of the injustice of all of those who would simply trust in him. Does this mean we can overlook injustices committed against the helpless today? On the contrary—it means that we are freshly empowered and motivated to fight the horrors of this world, knowing that the horror of our own sin has been justly wiped away, by sheer grace, in the work of Christ, received by faith.

Scripture: Psalms 18

The Lord’s strong deliverance of David from Saul elicits from David a song of love (v. 1). The Lord has delivered David from deadly peril at the hands of an aggressive and hostile enemy. David recognizes that it is only by God’s mercy and provision that he has been spared. 

While David appeals to his uprightness, we should remember two things. First, the events of this psalm are described in 2 Samuel, the book in which David’s greatest sins are narrated. Second, David is not claiming sinless perfection but is merely acknowledging that Saul has been aggressive toward him in a way far out of proportion to what David deserved. David is being treated unjustly. But God has delivered him. 

“But the psalm is not merely biographical of David, nor is it simply pietistic words for the worshiper. When David speaks similar words elsewhere, it is apparent that the purpose of preserving his line is to provide a Redeemer for the world (2 Sam. 7:4–17; 22:1–51). Indeed, the note on which he ends this psalm is of God’s covenant commitment “to David and his offspring forever” (Ps. 18:50). It is only in Jesus that this commitment finds its pinnacle and truest fulfillment. God’s gracious character and care find their ultimate revelation in Christ Jesus. When we look at our Savior, we see the flesh-and-blood embodiment of the care and provision God showed to David. 

We can trust God, no matter how dire the circumstance. For in the gospel, the direst of circumstances—our deserved condemnation and an eternity in hell—have already been emptied of their threat and power.

Scripture: Psalms 19

God does not want to stay hidden from us. He wants us to know him. We know him through his creation (vv. 1–6) and also through his law, the Torah, God’s revelation to Moses, now found in the first five books of the Bible. 

David exults in the preciousness of this Word. Is this how you feel about the revelation God has given of himself in his Word? How do you approach Scripture? Do you see it as fuel to revive your soul (v. 7)— “rejoicing the heart” (v. 8)? Do you desire the Word of God more than a ten million dollar inheritance and all that it could purchase (v. 10)? 

And yet the Word of God not only reveals who God is; it also reveals who we are, in all our sin and need. The lofty call of Scripture is worthy of all pursuit, yet frustratingly beyond our reach in light of our weakness and inadequacy. David knows this—thus his concluding remarks in the psalm, beginning with “Who can discern his errors?” (v. 12). He closes by praying for his words and thoughts to be acceptable in the sight of God. And he knows that by grace they will be, for in the final words of the psalm he calls God “my redeemer” (v. 14). But how, in light of his sin? Only, ultimately, through the redeeming work of God’s only Son, Jesus Christ—who, though perfectly “acceptable” (v. 14), was punished as one unacceptable so that we, unacceptable through sin, might be accepted eternally into God’s presence.

Scripture: Psalms 20

In David’s day, how did nations win battles? Through superior military strength. Horses. Chariots. Yet David saw beyond surface realities to the deeper meaning of all that happens—the sovereign governance of God, caring for his people, protecting them, and giving them what they most need. For this reason, David writes, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God” (v. 7). It is one thing to use chariots and horses in battle. It is another thing to trust in them. 

What about your own life? Consider your finances, for example. It is one thing to use money. It is another thing to trust in money. God calls us to use money shrewdly, yet not to entrust ourselves to it as our final security. God alone is able to bear the weight of our deepest trust. And God alone will never let us down when we place the full weight of our trust on him. In Christ, he proved it.

Scripture: Psalms 22

The pain of feeling forsaken is not a rarity among the people of God. As life unfolds before us as we walk with God, we will often battle feelings of wondering where God is. “If God were really with me,” we may ask, “would this be happening?” Where is his fatherly care in this loss, in this sickness, in this depression, in this pain? 

These feelings and thoughts do not take God by surprise. He has given us many texts in Scripture to care for us in these times of darkness. Psalm 22 is one of these. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (v. 1), we cry out. Perhaps the pain is too raw even to tell another person about it. We are suffering alone, the pain of solitude amplifying the agony. 

Notice that David assumes God has forsaken him. He does not ask God if he has forsaken him. He asks why, assuming God already has. Yet in light of the promises made to David in Scripture (see, for example, 2 Sam. 7:4–17), David ought to have known that God would never have finally forsaken him. 

We can hardly blame David, though, since we often harbor the same suspicion that God has left us—that we are alone. Yet we have even more reason to be free of such thoughts, to know that God has not left us. For we know there was only one member of God’s people who was ever truly forsaken by God. For that reason, as he was hanging on a Roman cross, he spoke David’s words: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). God had indeed forsaken him. And why? So that we never are forsaken, despite our deserving to be.

Scripture: Psalms 23

This is perhaps the most famous poem in the history of the world. And justly so. It is a deep consolation for the people of God. 

This psalm tells us that life with God means we have no lack (v. 1). A life walking with him is like “green pastures” and “still waters” (v. 2). But notice that David does not claim this about God when life is easy. This is how God cares for us when we “walk through the valley of the shadow of death” (v. 4). How can this be? How can life be green pastures and still waters in the enveloping fog of deep fears or bitter disappointment? In a sadness that refuses to lift, a habitual sin in which you feel trapped, a rejection by one you loved, or a deep sense that you keep disappointing God? The psalm tells us: “You are with me” (v. 4). Period. 

Would you rather have the mountaintop experience without God or the dark valley with him? 

How does the presence of God actually help me when I am in darkness? In this way: We know that Jesus Christ walked through the ultimate valley of the shadow of death, the darkness of condemnation and hell—a fate that should have landed on us. The result is that in our temporary dark valleys, we can know that despite our sins and failure, God will bring us, in full moral integrity, to be with him forever—where we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever, where all the mess and darkness of our little lives will be found to have worked backward to make us more resplendent and happy than we otherwise could have been.

Scripture: Psalms 27

What else do you need in life beyond the truths of Psalm 27? 

Fears press in on David (vv. 1, 3). Such is life. Who among us does not know what it is to wake up in the morning and, as consciousness slides over us once more, feel clutching at our hearts the pressing anxieties and fears of the day ahead? This is normal. This is life. 

Consider the words of this psalm. Read them slowly. Drink them in. If the Lord is your light and salvation, of whom will you be afraid (v. 1)? Even if your own parents forsake you, the Lord will take you in (v. 10). And note David’s single longing, the “one thing” he has asked: to dwell in the house of the Lord and gaze upon the beauty of the Lord (v. 4). 

Have you tasted this? Is the Lord beautiful to you? What is the beauty of God? It is his brilliance, radiance, and sun-like shining forth in who he is for sinners. And in Jesus, we see the ultimate embodiment of the beauty of God. Jonathan Edwards put it this way: 

Christ has infinite loveliness to win and draw our love. He is more excellent than the angels of heaven. . . . In beholding his beauty, the angels do day and night entertain and feast their souls and in celebrating of it do they continually employ their praises. Nor yet have the songs of angels ever declared all the excellency of Jesus Christ, for it is beyond their songs and beyond the thoughts of those bright intelligences to reach it. 

Our hearts are hungry for beauty. In Jesus Christ, we see the face of God, just as David longed to see the face of God (vv. 8–9). See him in the Gospels and all of Scripture—commune with him. Adore him. He is the deepest longing of our hearts.

Scripture: Psalms 34

We have all come across someone who constantly complains. No matter what good things wash into their lives, they focus on the bad. Psalm 34 takes that sinful impulse within all of us and flips it inside out. No matter how many bad things wash into our life, we can be someone who focuses on the good. “I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth” (v. 1). The rest of the psalm unpacks why and how we can praise God moment by moment as we move through life. 

Notice one particular element of rejoicing in God in all of life. “Those who look to him are radiant” (v. 5). Have you ever met a radiant man or woman? Have you seen a countenance of brilliant light on someone else’s face? This is on another plane beyond mere physical attractiveness or health. Have you ever spent time with someone with a certain glow and magnetic charm, and you knew it was because that person had lived a life of looking to the Lord? 

Consider how the psalmist speaks of the abundant provision and care of the Lord. To look to the Lord and be radiant as a result is to walk through life in happy defiance of any circumstantial adversity sending your emotional life into meltdown. You have God. You are safe. You have everything. 

This is true even when you are “brokenhearted” and “crushed in spirit” (v. 18). For God has demonstrated that he is not a stoic God, a distant God removed from our frailties and distresses. In Jesus, God drew near. He entered into our broken-heartedness. The Lord Jesus knows what it is to be crushed in spirit. He endured everything we do, with the sole exception of sin (Heb. 4:15). Enjoy life in Christ. Walk with him. Look to him. Become radiant and glorious (2 Cor. 3:18).

Scripture: Psalms 37

This psalm upends our natural impulses of how to live a full and abundant life. The core message of this psalm is that true fullness of life comes not as we expect. It is found not in manipulating our circumstances, controlling those around us, or violently silencing those who threaten our ambitions but in quietly looking to God and letting him sort out our lives. “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him” (v. 7). There is a glorious inevitability to the final glory of God’s people as they look to him, trust in him, and delight in him (vv. 4–6). When the wicked, on the other hand, function out of self-trust and seek to build their lives on their own strength and reliance, the enduring significance becomes elusive (vv. 35–36). They vanish as quickly as plumes of smoke disappear from a roaring fire (v. 20). 

“But the meek shall inherit the land” (v. 11). those who refuse to force their way into worldly control and power will, one day, inherit such rule. This deconstructs our motives and liberates our ambitions once again. We need not scramble for control. The way up is down. Jesus took this verse (v. 11) and reiterated it in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matt. 5:5). 

And it is in the Lord Jesus himself that we see this counterintuitive truth fully embodied. Jesus, the glorious Son of God, was condemned and crucified. Yet through the horrors of this anguish, he was brought through death and out the other side into light and glory and splendor (Phil. 2:6–11). United to this Savior, we follow in his footsteps, knowing that the way to glory is through suffering (Rom. 8:18). We follow this pattern in the glad knowledge that the deepest possible suffering—condemnation and hell—landed on him instead of us.

Scripture: Psalms 38

It is one thing to endure pain. It is another thing to endure pain that you know has come from your own sin. 

David writes this psalm out of the anguish of his heart. He is completely overwhelmed with life, “utterly bowed down and prostrate” (v. 6). But his pain is doubled by the knowledge that this pain is “because of my sin” (v. 3), “because of my foolishness” (v. 5). As a result, he is at wit’s end, enduring physical distress (v. 3), emotional pain (v. 8), and relational dysfunction (v. 11). 

Every child of God knows something of this pain—to know that various trials in life arise from our own foolishness. This is a double pain, for we are not innocent victims of someone else’s folly; it is our own folly. Does God have an answer for this? Is this an anguish that goes beyond the resources of the grace of God? Can true believers sin their way out of the mercy of God? 

May it never be. The apostle Paul insists with reassuring clarity that where sin piles up, grace piles up even higher. God’s answer for those who squander his grace through folly is more grace. In Jesus, this unending fountain of inexhaustible grace has been secured. In perfect justice and righteousness, God can treat believers not in accord with what they deserve on their own. Praise God.

Scripture: Psalms 46

To turn on the television or radio or to drive down a billboard-filled highway is to be bombarded with the message that various products and services are the secret to achieving inner calm. If you can just get the right body, education, financial structure, and entertainment system, then you will have achieved that deep “soul-sigh” everyone longs for. Psalm 46 offers an alternative to the world. It says: Be still. Be quiet. Look up. Calm down. God reigns. 

This psalm does not offer a Pollyanna view of life. This psalm gives us sober realism. Even though the earth goes haywire (vv. 2–3), even though nations assault each other (v. 6), all of this is under the wise and far-reaching hand of God. 

What troubles you today? What is it about which you think, “If I can just get that sorted out, life will become manageable”? What worries your heart as you lie awake in bed? God says: I, not any circumstantial solution, am your refuge amid your adversities. I am a very present help in trouble. I am God. Be still.

Scripture: Psalms 51

Who among us does not know the need to go to Psalm 51 and make it ours? David prayed this psalm after committing adultery with Bathsheba, but his words and heart of repentance are universally relevant to all who feel the weight of their sin. 

Note the pervasive metaphor used throughout the psalm: David feels dirty. He needs God to make him clean. “Wash me” (vv. 2, 7), he begs. “Cleanse me” (v. 3). “Purge me” (v. 7). “Blot out all my iniquities” (v. 9). But this is a dirtiness that cannot be washed off in a shower. It is inside us. 

Do you feel dirty? The good news of the gospel is that you can be rinsed clean. David pleads for God to have mercy on him (v. 1). Is this an empty, hopeless plea? By no means. Look at the next words: “according to your steadfast love” (v. 1). David asks God to be who he is. He is asking God to act in a way consistent with himself. David knows he is a God of “abundant mercy” (v. 1), so he asks for mercy accordingly. 

Is this who you know God to be? Is this who you know yourself to be? Do you know yourself to be dirty? A sinner? All that God asks of you is to bring the sacrifice of a “broken and contrite heart” (v. 17). He gave his own Son as the final sacrifice so that your brokenness could be the only prerequisite to receiving God’s abundant mercy. Amid your dirtiness, you are free to breathe again. He is the God of abundant mercy. He proved it in Jesus. This is who he is. In Christ, you are rinsed clean—invincibly, permanently, irreversibly.

Scripture: Psalms 91

This psalm is a song of deep consolation to the one looking to God for rest amid life’s adversities. Its consistent theme is the rest and peace God gives. Amid the storms of life, God is a safe and serene harbor. Have you experienced this? Or are you internally frenetic? Do you see the Lord himself, your Heavenly Father, ruling over all that washes into your life, hard and easy, good and bad? Do you see him nurturing you along in life, loving you, protecting you, working all for good? Rest in him again today. 

After all, the Lord Jesus proved that this is who God is. Jesus said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). Dwelling in the shelter of the Most High slows down the frantic spinning of our hearts. Life with God blankets our fast-paced lives with inner shalom. He is the God of peace (Rom. 15:33; 16:20; 1 Cor. 14:33). This is why Jesus came, as announced by the angels at his birth (Luke 2:14). 

The eighteenth-century hymn writer Charles Wesley captured it well in his hymn “Thou Hidden Source of Calm Repose”: 

Jesus, my all in all thou art; 

My rest in toil, my ease in pain, 

The healing of my broken heart. 

In war my peace, in loss my gain; 

My smile beneath the tyrant’s frown, 

In shame my glory, and my crown. 

In want my plentiful supply; 

In weakness my almighty power, 

In bonds my perfect liberty. 

My light in Satan’s darkest hour; 

In grief my joy unspeakable, 

My life in death, my heaven in hell.

Scripture: Psalms 100

A miserable Christian is a contradiction in terms. 

To be sure, life is hard. The pain accumulating throughout one’s journey in this world is a strong temptation to cynicism. The Christian life is not one of painted-on smiles, pretending that all is right in the world when in truth, there are horrors all around. Sometimes the pain in life is so great that rejoicing seems distant and a mockery to our true emotional state. 

Yet we must receive what the Bible says in passages such as Psalm 100 because the Bible itself acknowledges the deep pain of life, not only in other books (such as Ecclesiastes) but even in the Psalms. And even more deeply, the Bible gives us resources for wading through the pain of life with joy and calm that transcends the darkness. As this psalm concludes, “The Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations” (v. 5). Your pain never outpaces his love. The deeper reality of his goodness surrounds your difficulty. He proved it by sending his own Son for you. Even in the pain of life, we lift our hearts and our voices to the Lord.

Scripture: Psalms 103

Who is God? Who is he, really? What is at the center of his heart? As much as any place in the Bible, this psalm opens up to us who he most deeply is. 

What is it, above all else, that weary sinners most need to know? What is oxygen to us in our distressed, pain-riddled lives? The radiant sun of divine favor shining down on God’s children. While the clouds of sin and failure may darken our feelings of that favor, it cannot be lessened any more than a tiny, wispy cloud can threaten the sun’s existence. The sun is shining. It cannot stop. Be at peace. 

The Lord looks on his children with utterly unflappable affection (v. 13). Consider the affection of the fatherly heart of God. Let this psalm wash over you. Growth in the Christian life is the process of bringing your sense of self, your swirling internal world of fretful panic arising out of gospel deficit, into alignment with the more fundamental truth that “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (v. 8). In Christ, God proved it. 

We are sinners. We sin. But in Christ, our basic identity is not sinner but cleansed, whole. And as we step out into a new day in soul-calm because of that free gift of cleansing, we find that strangely, startlingly, we begin to “do his commandments” (v. 18).

Scripture: Psalms 109

We live in a world of accusation. Sometimes our accusers are actual people, as is the case for David as he writes this psalm: “Wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against me” (v. 2). When he attempts to forgive and show his accusers love (v. 4), they respond in intensified hatred, slander, and attacks. They will not allow him a moment of peace. David’s cry to God in this psalm is clear: “End it! Cut them off! Shut them up!” To our ears, this sounds too harsh, selfish, impatient, and unloving. How can David ask that “his days be few” (v. 8) or for God to “cut off the memory of them from the earth” (v. 15)? Is this even a Christian prayer? We want to plead with David to show a bit more grace, perhaps pointing him to Jesus’ words in Matthew 5 about loving our enemies and turning the other cheek. However, before we do, let us consider one more thing. 

David is the king, anointed by God to rule over Israel. His accusers are, in reality, accusing the One who appointed him king. If God allowed the accusers to continue, peace would not come to God’s king or his people. They must be stopped. 

David’s enemies are not the only accusers. We, too, live in a world of accusation. We find ourselves accused by others (Matt. 5:11–12), by ourselves (Rom. 7:21–24), and by Satan himself (Rev. 12:7–10). We are attacked on all fronts. Our accusers cry out that we are not pure, worthy, right, or enough. And perhaps we are not pure or worthy. But as with David, it is not our worthiness that matters. “God made [us] alive together with [Christ], having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him” (Col. 2:13–15). 

The way God answered David’s prayer is Jesus. In Jesus, the strength of our accusers is cut off. “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us” (Rom. 8:33–34). When our crucified and risen king comes again, our accusers will be silenced once and for all. We will have peace.

Scripture: Psalms 110

This psalm triumphantly looks to the future, to the Son of David who towers over David himself as God’s ultimate solution to a world hostile toward its Creator. The first verse of this psalm is cited all throughout the New Testament, and especially throughout Hebrews, as ancient testimony fulfilled in Christ of God’s promise of a coming Messiah who would establish justice over God’s enemies once and for all.

How does this text integrate into your own life? Christ’s enemies are your enemies, as you are his disciple aligned with him. Your greatest battle has been won. But what is this greatest battle? Your deepest struggle is against sin and death and condemnation. This transcends all other struggles. This is your real danger: separation from the Father because of your own rebellion. Conquest by Satan and the forces of hell, accusing you of your actual sinfulness.

And how is this battle won? By the fulfillment of verse 4: God has sent a priest who, unlike every other priest, will never die and will never have to offer a sacrifice for his own sin (Heb. 7:1–25). Instead, this priest has himself been the sacrifice for your sins.

Christ is your king, representing God to you, but he is also your priest, representing you to God. He is worthy of all our trust.

Scripture: Psalms 113

We find ourselves praising all day long. Praise tumbles out of our mouths without our even knowing it. We praise musical ability, athletic prowess, a beautiful snowfall, a child’s ability to take its first steps, a well-written book, a delicious dish. This psalm calls us to praise God. Why? Because the majestic God who rules over all (vv. 4–6) delights to take notice of the distraught and the needy (vv. 7–9). Who could have ever imagined that this is what the Creator is like? Who would have ever presumed him to be inclined in this way?

How about you? Have you seen his heart? Or do you view him as stoically distant and removed? Are you distraught? Are you perplexed by life? The Lord of heaven is drawn like a magnet to your distress. Open up to him. Welcome him into your need. “He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap” (v. 7).

Above all, remember that the great and high God proved once and for all that he loves to come down to meet distraught sinners in their need by coming in the person of the Son and becoming one who was himself low and distraught. He came for us. He came for you. He joined you in your lowly condition. Embrace him.

Scripture: Psalms 117

This short psalm calls for the nations (v. 1) to rejoice in God’s love for Israel (v. 2). How can that be? The psalmist knows that God’s love is pledged to Israel for the sake of the whole world. God called Abraham and his descendants to be a channel, not a dam; to pass on, not gobble up, God’s grace and mercy (Gen. 12:2–3; Ex. 19:5–6; 1 Kings 8:41–43). And the true and final descendant of Abraham, Jesus Christ, broke open God’s grace for all the world once and for all (Gal. 3:7–9, 16). 

Are you a follower of Jesus Christ? Enjoy God’s grace. But pass it on. To hoard God’s grace is to demonstrate you do not yourself understand it. If grace is as promised, it is free—indiscriminately open to all. Who in your life needs to hear of this grace? If grace is truly gracious, then you are permanently forgiven, liberated, and rinsed clean. Let your delight in this freedom bubble over into telling others what they might enjoy.

Scripture: Psalms 118

This psalm is saturated with joy. Ponder the language. Note the exclamations and exultations. Out of deep “distress” (v. 5), the Lord has met and delivered the psalmist. It seemed like the whole world was against him (vv. 10–13). But God himself was the psalmist’s “strength” and “song” (v. 14). 

Not only has God rescued the psalmist out of deadly peril, but he also has worked a remarkable reversal so that such peril has been transformed into triumph; the valley has become the mountaintop. This is what the psalmist means when he declares, “Glad songs of salvation are in the tents of the righteous” (v. 15). God has worked “valiantly” (vv. 15–16). This is also what is meant in verse 22: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” The stone thrown onto the rubble heap as useless has now become the most important building block of all, the very cornerstone. 

This is how God works. He comes near to us in all our distress, taking what the world rejects and dignifying us with eternal significance. It is not our doing in any way. It is all of grace: “This is the Lord’s doing” (v. 23). And we marvel at this grace. Most of all, we stand in awe of the supreme instance of his taking what the world rejected and turning it into an occasion for eternal significance—Jesus Christ, rejected by the religious elite, has become the cornerstone of the true and final temple, the church, of which each of us believers is a fellow stone (Matt. 21:42; Eph. 2:19–20). 

Have you been rejected today by someone who ought to have accepted you? You are in good company. Take heart. God draws near to you in his rejected, crucified Son.

Scripture: Psalms 119

This psalm celebrates the gift of God’s law, his Torah, his covenant instruction for his people. Having redeemed his people and brought us through grace into relationship with him, God now lovingly instructs us in the way to enjoy fullness of life. 

Although no one keeps God’s law perfectly, and in fact, we abuse it through legalism and works righteousness, the psalmist reminds us throughout this lengthy psalm of the delight that the law should be for the child of God. The psalm uses different words to describe the law, such as statutes, rules, commandment, law, word, and other similar terms; this reflects the richness of the Torah and the flourishing life into which it brings us. 

We tend to view God’s law as inhibiting human flourishing. C. S. Lewis helps us in his words to a friend in a 1933 letter: “God not only understands but shares the desire which is at the root of all my evil—the desire for complete and ecstatic happiness. He made me for no other purpose than to enjoy it. But He knows, and I do not, how such happiness can be really and permanently attained.” This is why God has given us his law—to guide us into full happiness as we trust and follow him. Lewis goes on to say: 

I think we may be quite rid of the old haunting suspicion (it raises its head in every temptation) that there is something else than God—some other country into which He forbids us to trespass—some kind of delight which He “doesn’t appreciate” or just chooses to forbid, but which would be real delight if only we were allowed to get it. The thing just isn’t there. Whatever we desire is either what God is trying to give us as quickly as He can, or else a false picture of what He is trying to give us—a false picture which would not attract us for a moment if we saw the real thing.

Scripture: Psalms 121

It is easy to go through life feeling vulnerable. Vulnerable to financial collapse, to physical illness, to relational rejection, to emotional meltdown. We naturally and easily feel small, weak, and defenseless.

What does it mean to be part of the people of God? Among a hundred other things, it means that the God who created the universe never ceases to watch over and actively protect you. It means he never takes a nap on you, never is distracted, never turns away. “He who keeps you will not slumber” (v. 3).

But how can we really know? Where is the proof?

The proof is there on a hill called Calvary. There Jesus died. Jesus Christ became truly vulnerable, truly defenseless, exposed not simply to adverse circumstances but to the forces of hell, receiving the judgment we deserved. He was overcome so that we could walk through life with the certain knowledge that we are God’s children and that he is ever watching over us.

Scripture: Psalms 138

“Great is the glory of the Lord. For though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly, but the haughty he knows from afar” (vv. 5–6). 

Where is God’s glory seen? In his greatness, to be sure: his omnipotence, infinitude, and eternality. Even more, however, the glory of God is seen in his goodness in light of that greatness. In all his immensity, he delights in showering his wayward creatures with grace upon grace. God is not glorious merely because he is great (although he is!) but because in that great immensity, he is also merciful when he has every reason to turn the shoulder and vaporize us. 

Jonathan Edwards wrote in a letter to a woman whose son had died: “Especially are the beams of Christ’s glory infinitely softened and sweetened by his love to men, the love that passeth knowledge. The glory of his person consists, preeminently, in that infinite goodness and grace, of which he made so wonderful a manifestation in his love to us.” The great French reformer John Calvin agreed: “There is no honoring of God unless his mercy be acknowledged, upon which alone it is founded and established.” 

Do you want to glorify God? Here is one major way to do it: Let him love you. Receive his grace, and drink it down without adding one drop of your own goodness to it. Your very purpose in life and eternity is to be “to the praise of his glorious grace” (Eph. 1:6).

Scripture: Psalms 139

“But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God . . .” (Gal. 4:9). In the New Testament letter to the Galatians, Paul seems almost to correct himself mid-thought, as if saying, “But now that you Galatians have come to know God—no, wait, the deeper truth is that God has come to know you.” That blessed reality of being known by God is the sustained theme of Psalm 139. 

Do you know God? Knowing God is a true and useful category for understanding your Christian experience. The Bible itself uses it repeatedly; the purpose of life, after all, is “that we may know him who is true” (1 John 5:20). But our human capacities do not exhaust what it means to be a child of God. “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it” (Ps. 139:6). The broader, deeper, wraparound category of life as the people of God is that he knows us. Not only now, in our present, but way back when we were being formed in the womb, God knew us (v. 15). He also knows our future—every day of it (v. 16). 

Do you feel alone? Unknown? Forgotten? Neglected? Sidelined? Marginalized? Remember who you are. If you are in Christ, the deepest reality of your existence is that God knows you. He knows every nook and cranny of your heart. He knows every failure, every fear. He understands you. He does not merely know about you. He knows you. He has pressed you into the inner recesses of his heart. Forgiven and adopted into his family by grace, you are loved by the Lord Jesus Christ with the very love with which the Father loves him (John 15:9).

Scripture: Psalms 150

The Psalter ends on a triumphant note of praise: “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!” (v. 6). The picture given by this psalm is one of complete celebration of who the Lord is and what he does. Instruments are played, and the psalmist even calls for dancing (v. 4). As the Psalter comes to an end, we are being led as the readers of Scripture to ponder the character of God and the extent of his great grace toward his people, as reflected throughout the entire Psalter. 

Given the God who is portrayed throughout the Psalms—a God who is merciful and gracious, a God who will not ignore the needy or helpless, a God who hates wickedness and will execute perfect justice one day, a God who heals the brokenhearted, a God who is a refuge and shelter for his troubled people, a God who understands his people’s internal highs and lows of living in this fallen world—what can we do but offer our lives and hearts unreservedly to him? He is our Shepherd, our Friend, our Deliverer. 

And in his Son Jesus Christ, he has proven himself as tangibly and certainly as possible to “be our Shepherd, Friend, and Deliverer. The God of the Psalms—the God who meets the desperate and hears the distraught—took on flesh and blood. He came for us. He came for you. This is who he is. 

Praise the Lord.