O Lord my God, in You I have taken refuge; Save me from all those who pursue me, and deliver me, or he will tear my soul like a lion, Dragging me away, while there is none to deliver.

Psalm 7:1

 

This is generally understood as a lament Psalm of David. He seeks God as His refuge (1-2), asserts his innocence (3-5), appeals to God to vindicate him (6-10) and judge his enemies (11-16). Finally he praises God for his righteousness (17).

 

For a guy, David is profoundly transparent and vulnerable. The beauty of the Psalms is that they dive deep into our emotional responses to life and towards God. They explore those dimension of our inner life that often go undiscovered. David expresses his fears by seeking a refuge in God himself. He acknowledges the threat of enemies in very profound terms.

 

“Save me from all my pursuers and deliver me, lest like a lion they tear my soul apart, dragging me away, while there is none to deliver”.

 

David uses a metaphorical description of a lion attacking his prey and once subdued, dragging it off (by the neck) with the certain anticipation of death. Why does David resort to this kind of language? Was he trying to be dramatic? I do not believe so. One of the very helpful elements of this text, for me, has been this description of David’s fear of his enemy. The metaphor of a lion attacking prey captures David’s emotional state towards the threat of his enemies. There seems to be two possible reasons for this:

 

First, David uses this metaphor to help communicate his fear. Sometimes we are not so sure how we feel in any given situation. We know we have this emotional torrent raging in front of us but struggle with trying to communicate it to others. We face this problem in conflicted marriages. Husbands and wives fail to be transparent with one another because they act out their anger or fear towards one another rather than communicate how they feel. David uses this metaphor to communicate his emotional state with God rather than acting out of his fear.

 

Second, David uses the metaphor to help himself identify, as clearly as possible, his own feelings. We often oversimplify our feelings as simply being angry, and we tend to hide or ignore that fear is very much ingrained in the whirlwind of emotions in the storm inside us for any given situation. This metaphor is one of many that David could have used to describe his own feelings in this particular circumstance, but he chooses to use this picture of a lion hunting prey. I believe that this particular metaphor best captures the deepest emotions inside David that most genuinely reflect his deepest anxiety. For instance, I speculate that he does not use a bear attacking him possibly because for him that does not pose (in real life) as great a fear as a lion. He finds one real life threat that most powerfully captures his true inner feelings at the time.

 

One of my real life “phobias” is claustrophobia. I was locked in a shed by some friends as a prank, but I completely “lost it” and almost destroyed the shed trying to get out. If I was trying to communicate some fear before the Lord, I might use “being trapped in an inescapable confined space” as the best metaphor to communicate my fears to the Lord (or anyone for that matter) to both communicate my vulnerability to someone and find a way to best put my finger on exactly how I am feeling at that particular moment.

 

Being honest with God is not automatic. Learning how to communicate how we feel by using metaphorical experiences to communicate those feelings to God (or anyone) may help truly capture how we really feel when our emotions are making it hard for us to do so.

 

Pastor Brad