Throughout history, in times of war, cities have been besieged. Over weeks and months, even years, they have been surrounded and threatened, assaulted and devastated. Those within the city have experienced terrible suffering and distress. Buildings are pummelled apart, stone by stone. Resources cannot be replenished and inevitably, witheringly, run dry. In the most desperate of times, the lack of food has led to the weakest becoming prey in the cannibalism of despair. Freedom of movement has been completely withdrawn. Open hostility has been the daily diet. Threats unceasing and all hope draining away. Often the siege led to capitulation and surrender or to complete destruction.
In Psalm 31:21 David recalls a time when he was in “a city under siege” - a time of desperation for himself and for the nation. They knew the reality of a horror that goes beyond words. And that suffering was compounded in David’s mind by the alarming thought that he was cut off from God’s sight - invisible, irrelevant, disposed of.
Those experiences are not limited to such specific physical and social realities. Both as individuals and churches we can (and perhaps have) know something of what David meant and what others have experienced. The isolation; the threats and endless hostility. Our resources failing; every day the line dropping a little lower. Relationships descending into emotional and verbal cannibalism (Gal. 5:15). Stone by stone, life is taken apart.
And the capstone of despair: "I am cut off from your sight". Unseen by the Lord. Not in his sight; not on his heart. Could anything feel more empty or desolating than that?
Yet David’s words are a testimony to the grace of God. They are an expression of praise: at his point of need, when he was in that besieged city, “the LORD...showed me the wonders of his love”; far from being unseen by God, his cry for mercy and help was heard (v.22).
The LORD intervened - in wonderful love. Not to fulfil a contractual obligation but in deep, tender, covenant love. David was seen by the God of all comfort and Father of compassion; seen and helped and delivered. When there was no longer any hope, the LORD kept his saving promise.
David’s testimony is written, “to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope” (Rom. 15:4) - even when our lives feel like a city under siege; when our minds are assaulted; when the church seems to be on its last legs; when we believe that we are utterly invisible. The certain hope of mercy and grace to help us in our time of need. The certain hope that his eye is on this sparrow, in all its seeming insignificance and frailty.
Hope that does not, will never, put us to shame, even when besieged in life, because God’s love has flooded our hearts through the Holy Spirit he has gifted to us.
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Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us
O'er the world's tempestuous sea;
Guard us, guide us, keep us, feed us,
For we have no help but Thee;
Yet possessing every blessing
If our God our Father be.
Saviour, breathe forgiveness o'er us;
All our weakness Thou dost know;
Thou didst tread this earth before us,
Thou didst feel its keenest woe;
Lone and dreary, faint and weary,
Through the desert Thou didst go.
Spirit of our God, descending,
Fill our hearts with heavenly joy,
Love with every passion blending,
Pleasure that can never cloy;
Thus provided, pardoned, guided,
Nothing can our peace destroy.
(James Edmeston, 1791-1867)
