Sanity

"He changed his behavior
..made marks on the doors and let his spittle run down his beard."
Classed as a "madman," it was perhaps the lowest, most desperate point of his life.

He had hunted often, and now he was the hunted.

In the wild, he found a cave, and people came to join him - the kind of people who, too were looking for a cave: "everyone in distress, eveyone who was in debt, everyone who was bitter in soul" - a fine group of uplift experts indeed.

No Kum bah yahs around those fires.

It had to be an incredibly bleak time. Chaos. Hopelessness.

And yet, we sing songs shaped by the words that he wrote in his journal in those days.

Songs like "My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast!"
and
"I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples;
I will sing praises to you among the nations.
For your steadfast love is great - it reaches to the heavens
- your faithfulness to the clouds."

The journal pages?
Psalm 57.

The author?
King David, on the run from Saul. (I Samuel 21-22)

Application?

Spittle might not be on your face now, but perhaps you would like to spit at what is going on.

They might not call you "mad" but perhaps "strange, out of sorts."

Go for sanity.

Keep the songs going inside...the ones about God's stability, and compassion and control of every event in the lives of those whose faces are set towards him. The songs about His bigness and creative genius. The songs about how it all will end.

And if the crowd in the cave with you is a bit like David's...push them in the upward, God-ward direction. They are in your life for a purpose.

Look up. And mark it down for the next generation.

It's all about God, and stability, and an unswerving trust in His providential oversight of our lives. It's been the sanity focus for thousands of years, and it won't change its effective remedy for the crazies while we are all alive.

Sanity...it is His gift to us in every situation of our lives.


David