I would like you to look at a psalm in the Bible today since it has been written somewhere.

We typically picture the great prayers in Scripture as being offered from mountaintops, after a victory had been achieved, by a man dressed in fine robes with his hands raised and all going smoothly. Yet Psalm 34, one of the most beautiful songs of praise in the whole Bible, did not originate on a mountaintop.

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It arose during the most disastrous, most shameful, and most frightening moment in a single person’s life.

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I’ll tell you the story, because after you’ve heard it, the psalm will never sound the same to you again.

A Song From the Pit

David wrote it. Back when he wasn’t a king, he was a fugitive, escaping for his life from a king who was jealous of him and who wanted him dead. He was being hunted, had no home, and had no possible solutions.

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In his state of desperation, David took an action that makes it clear just how serious the situation had become—he entered enemy territory directly. He took refuge in a Philistine city, that is, in the very people who were Israel’s most bitter enemies, the same faction whose champion, Goliath, David had killed many years earlier. He went to the hometown of the giant who had been slain because he had no other place to go.

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And when he arrived there, they knew who he was. He understood that he was surrounded and that all of them had reasons to kill him. So do you know what David did to survive?

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He feigned madness. As the Bible states, he scratched at the doors of the gate and allowed spit to run down his beard, behaving in a manner typical of a madman, in order that the king might consider him to be harmless and send him away rather than have him killed. And this plan succeeded. The king asked, “Why has this madman been brought to me?” and then sent him on his way. David managed to escape and save his life, but only after carrying out the most humiliating performance one could imagine.

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And then, right after that, David wrote these words:

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I will always praise the Lord and speak about him continually.

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Chest it. He didn’t write it from the palace; he wrote it from the pit. After feigning madness and spitting on himself in order to get through, he composed a song about how good God is. He was still being hunted and had no place where he could safely rest his head. It was precisely at that time that he decided to praise.

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That is why I admire this psalm so much for women like us, since we know what it is to praise God from a difficult situation, and David is going to demonstrate it to us.

Praise Is a Choice, Not a Feeling

If you look carefully at what David says, it is “at all times” and “always”, not “when things are good” or “when I feel like it”, but at all times.

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The first point that David shows us is that praise in difficult situations is not something that suddenly comes over you; it is a choice you make, a decision to shift your attention, even for a short time, from fear to the God who is greater than the fear.

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I would like to make it absolutely clear what this does not imply, since if you’ve experienced some kind of hardship you need to know this. Saying praise to God in the midst of a storm doesn’t mean that you are pretending to be happy; it doesn’t mean acting as though it isn’t hurting; it doesn’t mean putting on a smile for your pain and saying “everything happens for a reason”. David was not pretending; he was both horrified and ashamed, and he made that clear in this psalm.

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To choose to praise from the pit is nothing else but this: at present, even though I am here, I will turn my face towards God rather than give in to my fear.

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That isn’t denial; it is survival; it is the difference between staring at the waves until they pull you under and raising your eyes to the One who can walk on the water.

What He Learned in the Pit

As the psalm proceeds, David explains what he found when he looked to God from that lowly position, and each line is addressed to you.

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He states, “I looked for the Lord, and he responded to me; he freed me from all my fears.” Note that God not only delivered him from his enemies but also from his fears—from the fears within himself. Although God sometimes alters our situations, even before that happens, He can reach into our hearts and start to remove the fear.

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He says, “People who look to him are radiant; their faces are never shaded by shame.” So that every woman who has borne a sense of shame that wasn’t really hers, someone else making her feel small and worthless and to blame—may hear this promise: when you look to God, your face will be lifted. The shame which someone else has poured upon you will not have the last say.

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He says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” Not ‘read about it,’ not ‘take my word for it,’ but taste it. God is not requiring of you blind faith; rather, He is inviting you to experience His goodness in your own real life until you know it for yourself.

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Then he says the words that I most want to leave with you today—the verse to keep in mind, the verse to write on your mirror.

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God is near to those who are broken-hearted and rescues people who are crushed in spirit.

He Is Closest Where You Are Most Broken

When your heart is broken, where is God? And when you are crushed beyond all recognition, and it seems as though you have nothing left of yourself, where is God?

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He is still not far off, watching from afar and disappointed in you for not being stronger.

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He is close.

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Here’s the truth which completely turns things around. We often believe that our flaws cause God to turn his back on us. We think that we must tidy ourselves up, get our act together, and cease struggling before we can be worthy of coming to Him. Psalm 34 states the exact opposite; a broken heart does not drive God away. It brings Him near. It is at the very moment when you feel most lonely because of your suffering that He is closest to you.

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You aren’t too severely damaged in God’s eyes, for your shattered spirit does not stand in the way of your meeting Him; rather, it is the door through which He comes. Since God is closest to the broken-hearted, that means if your heart is broken this evening, you may be nearer to Him now than at any time before.

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David does not close his message with suffering; instead, he offers a promise: “Although the righteous may have many troubles, the Lord will deliver him from all of them.” Note the honesty here—he does not promise that you will have a life free from troubles; on the contrary, he says you will have many. Yet he does guarantee that you will not have to face any one of them by yourself, and that God is a deliverer who will see you through all of them, in His own time and in His own way.

From the Pit to the Promise

The entire journey of a healing heart is contained in one psalm: from the lowest point to praise, from praise to God delivering us from our fears, from our fears being taken away to our shame being removed, from experiencing His goodness to realising that He had always been nearest, right within our brokenness, and finally to the assurance that our many troubles will not be the last word since He will deliver us from all of them.

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You walked that road after the most unpleasant night of your life, and so can you.

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So wherever you are today, whatever pit you are writing your own song from, I want you to remember what a terrified, hunted, humiliated man discovered when he had nothing left but God:

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You aren’t excessively damaged, since your value was always beyond negotiation, and the God whom you might feel is the most distant is in fact the one who is closest to you.

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Taste and see, for he is good and is near, and He has not yet finished with you.

A Prayer for You, From the Hard Place

No matter where you are when you are reading this, I would like to pray with you. If you have the opportunity, put your hand over your heart and make these words your own.

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Father,

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I am coming to You just as David did—not from a mountaintop but from the difficult situation, from the parts of my life that I don’t show anybody. Since you already know precisely what I am carrying, I have no intention of pretending today; instead, I will simply bring it to You and let You be near.

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O Lord, rescue me from my fears, not only from the situation I’m in but from the fear that dwells in me. The fear that I’ll never get over it, the fear that I’m too far gone, the fear which I acquired during the times when I had to walk on eggshells. Come into my heart and start to raise it.

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Take the shame away from me, for that shame was not something that belonged to me but had been imposed on me by people who ought to have loved me. Raise my face and remind me that I am your daughter and that your daughters have nothing to be ashamed of.

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Allow me to taste and see whether You are good, not simply as an idea but in my real life this week in ways that I can see, touch, and know for myself.

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And with regard to the Lord, verse 18: come near to me when I am in my broken state. If my heart is broken and if my spirit is crushed to nothing, be near to me at once. Allow me to realize, through my whole body, that I am not alone in the dark, that my brokenness has not caused You to leave me but has drawn You closer, that You are nearer to me than my very breath.

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I can see that I have a great many troubles. You never said they would not happen. But You did promise to deliver me from all of them, according to Your own time and in Your own way. That is why I have given up on my own timetable and cease to expect that You will save me in the manner in which I have imagined. Instead, I believe that You are already acting and bringing about my deliverance from within, even before any change takes place in my situation, and that my soul will be kept safe in whatever happens.

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Thank you for not passing final judgment on me. Having been blamed and made to feel as though I was the source of the problem for so long, I am now able to lift myself out of everyone else’s verdict and stand under yours. Chosen. Beloved. Never condemned.

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I am not yet beyond repair for you; my value was never something that could be discussed. You haven’t finished with me yet.

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I seek shelter in You.

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In the mighty name of Jesus,

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Amen.

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If these words found something in you today, I would love to keep walking with you. This is the kind of truth we hold onto together, week after week, in a community of women healing from the hard places and discovering they were never as alone as they believed. You were never meant to walk this road by yourself. www.duarte.coach/bc 💛

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With so much love, Nancy Duarte/Bible Chicks Teacher, Founder of Life n Earth Ministries