To you, Lord, I call; You are my Rock, do not turn a deaf ear to me. For if you remain silent, I will be like those who have gone down to the pit. (Psalm 28:1)
When was the last time you wondered if God hears your prayers? When was the list time you sensed the sound of silence as you were pleading at the gates of heaven? Notice that I said “When,” I didn’t ask, “Have you ever?” Like David, we all find ourselves in seasons when heaven seems silent, and, like David, we want to know that God has not turned a deaf ear to our pleas.
Psalm 28 provides great insight into David’s prayer life as he cried out to God from the depths of his heavy heart. We don’t know exactly what David was going through at the time he penned this psalm. Perhaps it was a season of sickness or a time of deep loneliness or a period of desperate despair. Regardless of the waves of challenge David was facing, he looked to his Lord, his Rock, for help. The question is, Do we do the same thing . . . in utter dependence upon God?
David knew where to take his weakness and fear: To the only One who could help him rise above the waves of challenge that were washing over him. He not only knew Who to go to, he also knew that the One he went to was able to act on his behalf because He is the Rock of Ages. Charles Spurgeon, the great 19th-century “Prince of Preachers,” put it this way in his commentary on the psalms, The Treasury of David:
The immutable Jehovah is our rock, the immovable foundation of all our hopes and our refuge in time of trouble; we are fixed in our determination to flee to him as our stronghold in every hour of danger.
What picture comes to mind when you read David calling God his Rock? God as our Rock is a picture of a foundation that cannot be shaken and will not be moved. For David, God was not only his source of strength, He was David’s source of stability and security. Many scholars have said God as Rock pictures His permanence and power, and David knew of these by way of personal experience.
But that’s not all! There is one more most important picture of God as Rock, painted by Paul as he described the wilderness wandering of Israel:
They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. (1 Corinthians 10:3-4).
David was looking forward to the Rock that was to come, and this Rock was the “smitten rock” of Exodus 17:6, the Lord Jesus Christ, who provides streams of living water for the thirsty, even in the most barren wilderness we may currently be experiencing. So regardless of what you are facing, cry out to your Rock, knowing that He will never turn a deaf ear and will always answer – but in His way and in His perfect timing. May that truth set us all free to trust completely in the Rock of our salvation.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Grace for the Race 