“Let them wander up and down for meat, and grudge if they be not satisfied. But I will sing of thy power; yea, I will sing aloud of thy mercy in the morning: for thou hast been my defence and refuge in the day of my trouble.” (Ps 59:15-16 AV)
We have a choice. We have a choice in how we will go through life. I think it ironic that the degree of adversity is greater for the grateful than the ungrateful. Those who grudge are doing so over a meal. The grateful sing of mercy in the midst of trouble. Our thought for the day is the first two words. “Let them”. David refuses to allow those who are complaining to dampen his grateful heart. His eyes are focused on the right things. He is not obsessing over his troubles. Rather, he chooses to see God’s intervention in the midst of his trouble. Mercy is valued much higher than resentment infiltrates. It is all about perspective. David has purposed in his heart that the complainers will not sully his joy-filled heart. He has purposed in his heart that God has done for him far more than he deserves. It is not a naïve attitude regarding his troubles. He is not ignoring them. Rather, David knows how blessed he is. Not because of the absence of trouble. Rather, because of God’s mercy in the midst thereof.
I have read the above passage several times, and verse fifteen makes me chuckle. This is not a ‘let them eat cake’ type of comment. For those who don’t know, those words are traditionally attributed to Marie Antoinette in response to a famine in France. It is traditionally said that she uttered those words as a nine-year-old princess in response to the complaining of the poor that there was no bread to eat. If there were no bread, then there was no cake, either. These words are used to show the indifference of a privileged class had toward a peasant class. This is not what David is sharing. Rather, he has his own set of troubles. Perhaps he had food on his table, but as the king of a nation, he had much bigger problems. It was not that he was calloused toward those who were begrudging their need for a meal. Rather, he would not allow their constant complaining to cause him to lose focus on the mercy of God.
Putting it another way, we can allow the ‘downers’ to bring us to a place where we cannot see the mercy of God. We can see the clouds and not the rain. A few days ago, we had severe storms. We received in one afternoon what we would normally get in a month. When that happens, I have to go to the church and make sure we didn’t get water into the basement. Every time there is a north-driven storm, there is a real possibility of spending a few hours cleaning up a water spill. Praise the LORD we were dry. The ground was so parched that three inches of rain barely watered the lawns. We can look at the downed trees, the flooded basements, or the mud-covered sidewalks and lament the storm. Or, we could be grateful that our farmers might have a good yield this fall. It is all about perspective. David decided he could do nothing about their complaining. So, let them complain. No sense in trying to stop it. You can’t. No sense in confronting it. It won’t change a thing. Rather, he will focus on the mercy of God. He chooses to see God’s faithfulness. He would rather see the goodness of God as his primary focus than adversity and the definition of life.
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