My heart is steadfast, O God,
my heart is steadfast!
I will sing and make melody!
Awake, my glory!
Awake, O harp and lyre!
I will awake the dawn! (Psalm 57:7-8)
Here’s a guy who intends to make so much noise praising God, as to “awake the dawn”. Notice he didn’t say he was going to “awake with the dawn”. No, his sentiment is that the sound of his praising will “awake the dawn” from its slumber. He’s emphatic. Five exclamation marks in two verses.
Why such joy and rejoicing?
The inscription under the title of the psalm says David wrote this “when he fled from Saul, in the cave”. So king Saul is hunting David like an outlaw or a wild animal, and he fled and hid out in a cave, with a price on his head, and was so happy that he wrote exuberantly about waking the dawn? He’s cracked!
Where is this joy coming from?
In the book of Ruth we see that David’s great-grandmother (Ruth) took shelter under the wing of God (Ruth 2:12). The picture is of a fearful, weak, helpless eaglet sheltering under the wing of mama Eagle, who will provide and protect. Ruth took shelter in God, and found such refuge for her soul that she was then free to sacrifice her own physical, and even emotional and relational, comfort to love her mother-in-law in a beautiful, self-sacrificial way.
Ruth left the safety and comfort of everything she knew, her family, her people, her nation, and gave herself completely to caring for Naomi, because she was secure in the shelter of God’s wing.
Now, three generations later, David finds that same shelter.
Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me,
for in you my soul takes refuge;
in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge,
till the storms of destruction pass by. (Psalm 57:1)
That’s how David starts the Psalm. He acknowledges that he is in the midst of one of life’s storms. And a bad one at that, his life is on the line.
He takes refuge in the shadow of God’s wing, and there finds such security and joy that he overflows a few verses later, saying he intends to make such a racket praising God as to “awake the dawn!”
I love the family tradition we see here, of taking refuge under God’s wing, and finding such security there that you joyfully love others and praise God with absolute abandon.
May we all seek such shelter, and overflow with such joy!
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