“ In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.”Psalm 18:6
Beloved Brothers and Sisters in the Lord,
Helmut Thielicke, the renowned Lutheran theologian and preacher from Germany, describes how he selected from three otherwise equally qualified candidates for marriage, eventually taking Marie-Luise Hermann to be his wife in 1937.
In his autobiography, Notes from a Wayfarer, he outlines the rather ingenuous selection process:
“ Both my profession [university professor and preacher] and my political convictions [Thielicke was part of the resistance movement opposed to the Nazi regime, and a member of the Confessing Church] were possibly leading me towards a serious conflict with the authorities [which actually proved to be the case, as Thielicke was repeatedly harassed and persecuted by the Nazis]. Up until now, I had only been responsible for myself. A wife would also have to be brave . . . . A ‘scaredy-cat’ would certainly be of no use to me. But how could I find this out?. . . I decided to take each of them for a ride on my motorcycle and race around a sharp bend that I knew well at top speed. Whoever then uttered a squeal of fright when our angle with the road was at its sharpest had failed the test. Only one of them–and it was precisely the lady I hoped it would be–did not utter a sound” (105-106).
Well, how about that for most practical way to select a wife!! As cleaver as it is, however, I would not recommend it to any of our young men!
I thought of this humorous episode as I read the words of David in Psalm 18. In these beautiful and poetic phrases, Israel’s greatest king, the courageous warrior, the Lord’s anointed, and the man who commanded the armies of the living God, candidly admits that his life was often interrupted by seasons of “ distress.”
Borrowing from Thielicke’s story, we might say that David was riding on the back of the Lord’s ‘motorcycle.’ And as His Sovereign took him around the tight corners of life, just inches off the pavement at top speed, David could not, and did not, hold his screams and squeals! He let them fly! Those moments of peril and sheer terror that David experienced as he obediently followed his Lord, instinctively moved the king to cry out to Yahweh for “ help.” It seems, then, that even the bravest warrior will scream sometimes.
As we reflect upon this very honest and forthright admission on the part of David, I can’t help but wonder if we do not encounter a paradox here, a truth that seems to shake up and even reverse what we might commonly believe. It seems that we often think of the strong and brave person as the one who does not cry out for help. We even speak approvingly of some men as ‘the strong, silent type.’ Courage is frequently defined as coming near disaster and remaining quiet, never opening the mouth to expose the terror boiling over inside. And yet, no one could ever accurately claim that king David was a ‘scaredy-cat’! Far from it, as his life provides ample testimony!
Could it be, then, that one great sign of spiritual strength and confidence in the Lord is that we do cry out to Him in our seasons of distress? Is it possible that this is the evidence of the presence of faith, not of its absence? Could our crying out to our Father be one of the blessed indicators of our relationship to Him? And might this be something that He delights in?
I think the answer to these questions is a very firm ‘Yes!’
As we follow our Lord and Redeemer, riding along with Him as it were, we will travel all kinds of roads and traverse all types of terrain. And there will be plenty of times that the road of our discipleship will be very curvy, sharp, zig-zagged, and fraught with danger. But our gracious Savior does not expect us to be ‘the strong silent type.’ He desires that we cry out to Him in full dependence upon His mercy and grace! And this crying out is itself the proof that we belong to Him, that we trust Him, and that we understand that He holds our lives in His mighty hand!
Oh, we are indeed, the bride of Christ. But He did not choose us because we were strong and silent! He did not select us because were among those to successfully pass some test of courage. We were chosen as His bride in pure grace, and that’s that!
So, in faith, let those screams and squeals loose! Your Father surely hears you from His temple! And He will answer you, every time!
I love you all so very much!
Mike