“God is in charge of everything.” That’s what we Presbyterians believe, and God’s sovereignty is a marvelous source of reassurance – most of the time. But what do you do when success isn’t coming your way? If God is in charge of everything, and your plans aren’t working out, does…

How do we keep trusting God when everything in our lives seems to be going wrong? That was the challenge for David, who was on the run from King Saul, who was his own father-in-law. Even though years earlier God had promised that David would one day be king, at…

Are you afraid of something or someone today? Well, if it was okay for a mighty warrior like David to admit his fears, we can too. And just because we’re Christians doesn’t mean we have to minimize our problems or just wish them away. David’s problems were serious, and he…

“Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest” (verse 6). Maybe the conflicts in your life have given you this sort of longing. David often had good reason to want to escape from his fearsome foes. When he was a young man…

If Psalm 51 tells us how we should pray about our own sin, Psalms 52 and 53 help us learn how to pray about the sin we see in the world around us. And we cannot deny that sin is, and has always been a very big problem indeed. In…

Sometimes sin is subtle – the hateful thoughts and words or the proud complacency that Psalm 50 condemns. Sometimes sin is lustful and violent, as was David’s adultery with Bathsheba and the consequent murder of her husband Uriah. But however we may have sinned, Psalm 51 gives us a model…

Sometimes, wickedness is easy to spot. We condemn the hatred and suspicion that would become a death sentence for a young black man out for a jog. We are shocked at those who take advantage of their high office to misuse public funds on a grand scale. And because we…

She’s as sharp as a tack! He’s as strong as an ox! We hear expressions like this every day. But when’s the last time you heard, “That’s as sound as a dollar”? Folks used to say that to emphasize the sturdiness or reliability of things. But since the United States…

From the “cancel culture” trying to silence her message to vandals defacing her places of worship with pro-abortion graffiti, the Church continues to face lots of opposition. But that is nothing new in the history of God’s people. Verse 4 mentions kings who assembled themselves to fight against Jerusalem, but…

A worldwide pandemic. War in Ukraine. Nightly shootings in our streets. Is there a stronghold of safety anywhere in this world? Is there a place of refuge? Not in the earth that quakes. Not in the seas that roar and foam. Not in the rivers that flood and change their…