Psalm 142:1-2


Psalm 142:1-2
I cry aloud to the LORD;
I lift up my voice to the LORD for mercy.
2 I pour out before him my complaint;
before him I tell my trouble.

As David enters the cave of Adullam, he enters into s place of loneliness. Everything in his life has been stripped away from him. He is living through one, if not the, darkest moments in his life. All alone is a cave, hiding for his life, David begins to write, pouring out his heart. In a series of Psalms (142, 57, & 34) David records a self-transformation.

It begins with the opening lines of Psalm 142. A cry to the Lord in which David asks for mercy and lays out his troubles before the Lord. Have you ever been so stripped of everything that you find yourself literally on your knees crying out to the Lord? It is a painful yet powerful place to be. The pain of having nothing is hard to understand unless you have been there. Hitting rock bottom means that you have gone through many things to get there. When you finally do hit the bottom, it’s on your knees because there is nothing left in you to keep standing. It’s a painful place to be.

Yet it is also a powerful place to be. You see, seldom do we on our own, strip away every crutch in our lives, every pretense of control and strength, and every delusion we have about ourselves and having life altogether. When we hit our knees, like David did in the cave, we discover that the bottom is not as lonely as we thought, because God meets us there. In fact, he was waiting for us there. He was waiting for us so that he could provide for us a refuge from all that was bringing us down.

In the cave of Adullam David gets down on his knees and discovers a refuge in God that he had never truly known before. Perhaps you too are in a cave similar to David’s, a place where everything has been stripped away and all that is left is God. While painful, recognize that it is also a powerful place to be. And never forget, God is with you in that cave.