Pulled from the Mud

A Meditation on Psalm 40

The right way to face this world is in Psalm 40. It’s sober. It’s true. It doesn’t pretend. This is a song for people like us... sinners stumbling forward, trying by the grace of God to finish the race in a world full of ruts and sinkholes.

Most Psalms open with a cry for help and close with relief. Psalm 51 does that. David begins begging: “Have mercy on me, O God… blot out my transgressions.” He ends with his resolve: “Then I will teach transgressors your ways… my tongue will sing of your righteousness.” That’s the rhythm: trouble, then deliverance.

But Psalm 40 breaks the pattern. It begins with memory and ends with need. David starts by looking back at what God has done for him. Only then does he lay out his present misery.

That order matters. Because life doesn’t wipe clean when the sun comes up. The slate isn’t cleared. Yesterday’s trouble is still trouble today. It sits on the edge of the bed and waits for you. David teaches us to face those troubles by remembering what God has already done.

We’re quick to forget. Israel forgot in the wilderness. God hammered Egypt with plagues, split the Red Sea, rained bread from heaven, brought water out of rock. And still, they complained. At the shore they cried, “Better to serve Egypt than die here.” Hungry, they longed for Egypt’s meat pots. Thirsty, they accused Moses of trying to kill them. Over and over, God saved them. Over and over, they groaned.

We’re no better. Doom fills our mouths at the first sign of trouble. We forget the God who delivered us last week, last year, last night.

David takes another path. He begins with God’s mercy: “I waited patiently for the Lord; He inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock.”

He was stuck. Helpless. Like a man in a dungeon pit, walls slick with mud, sliding back down every time he tried to climb out. He couldn’t save himself. But God heard. God reached down. God set his feet on solid ground.

That rescue gave him a new song. “He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord.” Delivered men sing. Their songs pull others toward God.

David doesn’t stop with himself. He says, “Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust… You have multiplied, O Lord, your wondrous deeds toward us.” God doesn’t only save kings. He saves peasants, beggars, exiles. Spurgeon said it plain: “A man may be as poor as Lazarus, as hated as Mordecai, as sick as Hezekiah, as lonely as Elijah, but while his hand of faith can keep its hold on God, none of his outward afflictions can prevent his being numbered among the blessed.”

That truth demands a response. First, worship from the heart. “In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear… I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.” This points forward to Christ. All the sacrifices of the old covenant never removed sin. Only the obedience of Christ could.

Second, witness before others. “I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation… I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation.” David can’t stay silent. Neither can we. Matthew Henry said the temptation would always be to hush it, because the gospel always meets resistance. But you can’t hide deliverance. Someone must speak it.

After this, David finally comes to his present need. “My iniquities have overtaken me, and I cannot see; they are more than the hairs of my head; my heart fails me.” Trouble without, sin within. Enemies plotting, sins choking, heart fainting.

He pleads: “Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me! O Lord, make haste to help me!” He prays for God to shame those who want him destroyed, those who mock him with their “Aha, Aha!”

But the Psalm doesn’t end with despair. It ends with quiet confidence: “May all who seek you rejoice… As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me. You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God.”

That line is the marrow of Psalm 40. David is poor and needy, but the Lord thinks of him. He admits his helplessness. He clings to God’s memory of him. He cannot deliver himself. God will.

That’s how to live in this world. Remember what God has already done. Worship Him from the heart. Tell others what He has done. Then cry out for present help, and trust that He will not forget you.

Christianity is not happy-clappy denial. David didn’t ignore his problems. He laid them bare. But he did it after remembering the God who saves. And that makes all the difference.

So, when trouble comes, and it will, don’t start with the trouble. Start with the Rock who pulled you out of the pit. Don’t hide His faithfulness. Don’t despair as if He’s gone. You are poor and needy. But the Lord takes thought for you. He is your help. He is your deliverer. And He will not delay.