Jump!
/PSALM 143 – Listed as: “A Prayer When You Need Help and Guidance”
Unless you never need either!!!
I love to go to the Psalms when I need help and guidance – or when I’m in distress – or when I just need a lift to my spirit.
David is not afraid to tell God exactly how he feels. Being honest with God about our feelings is pivotal to managing them. It’s not like He doesn’t know what’s on our minds, anyway! And, like David, when we express our feelings to God, we can eventually come to the point of realizing that we’ve been talking to the Only One Who can help. Like David, then, we end up in worship and praise. That feels SO MUCH BETTER!
In Psalm 143, verse 1, David says to God, “Hear me!” “Listen to me!” And then, in verses 3 and 4, David proceeds to spill it all out before the Heavenly Father.
In verses 5-8, David does some very constructive, very healing things:
He remembers God’s faithfulness in the past.
He meditates on God’s mercy, His care and on the plans God had worked out for David in previous situations.
Doing those things helped David take his mind off his concerns. He goes on in the verses that follow in Psalm 143 to make several very clear statements of faith: “I trust You.” “I lift up my soul to You.” “I take refuge in You.” “You are my God.” And, to these testimonies to his confidence in God, David gives God a very direct invitation: “Teach me.” “Teach me to do Your will!”
David surrendered the concerns of his heart and life to God. When we do likewise, we find that God is able to help us face our struggles and provide direction for what’s ahead.
From a book entitled, MOURNING INTO DANCING by Walt Wangerin, Jr., I read:
“When I was a boy… I told people that my father was stronger than anyone else in the world…
So I would go out on the front porch and roar to the neighborhood: ‘My daddy’s arm is as strong as trucks! The strongest man in the world.’ …
In those days a cherry tree grew in our backyard. This was my hiding place. Ten feet above the ground a stout limb made a horizontal fork, a cradle on which I could lie face-down, reading, thinking, being alone. Nobody bothered me here. Even my parents didn’t know where I went to hide. Sometimes Daddy would come out and call, ‘Wally? Wally?’ but he didn’t see me in the leaves.
I felt very tricky.
Then came the thunderstorm…
One day suddenly, a wind tore through the backyard and struck my cherry tree with such force that it ripped the book from my hands and nearly threw me from the limb. I locked my arms around the forking branches and hung on. My head hung down between them. I tried to wind my legs around the limb, but the whole tree was wallowing in the wind…
‘Daddeeeeeeee!’…
There he was…the branches swept up and down, like huge waves on an ocean—and Daddy saw me, and right away he came out into the wind and the weather, and I felt so relieved because I just took it for granted that he would climb right up the tree to get me.
But that wasn’t his plan at all.
He came to a spot right below me and lifted his arms and shouted, ‘Jump.’
‘What?’
‘Jump. I’ll catch you.’
Jump? I had a crazy man for a father. He was standing six or seven miles beneath me, holding up two skinny arm and telling me to jump. If I jumped, he’d miss. I’d hit the ground and die…
But the wind and the rain slapped that cherry tree, bent it back, and cracked my limb at the trunk. I dropped a foot. My eyes flew open. Then the wood whined and splintered and sank, and so did I, in bloody terror.
No, I did not jump. I let go. I surrendered.
I fell.
In a fast, eternal moment I despaired and plummeted. This, I thought, is what it’s like to die—
But my father caught me…
Now, in such a storm the tree which was our stable world is shaken, and instinct makes us grab it tighter: by our own strength we grip the habits that have helped us in the past, repeating them, believing them. We’d rather trust what is than what might be: that is, our power, our reason and feeling and endurance… We spend a long time screaming ‘No!’ …
But always, God is present. God has always been present. And it is God who says, ‘Jump.’”
