Psalm 32:7—”You are my hiding place; You shall preserve me from trouble; You shall surround me with songs of deliverance.”
In times of trouble: when creditors breathe down your neck, illness persists, your boss tries to fire you, your parents do not seem to understand you, bills pile up, you get laid off by the company, your children do everything opposite to God’s Word, there is total turmoil and unrest in your mind and body. Who do you turn to for solace – family, friends, colleagues, cigarettes, alcohol? Does God figure then? There is another angle to the context of this verse. When one reads this scripture, the first thought that comes to mind is, God is our hiding place (from trouble). It could also possibly mean that God is our hiding place (from sin). We run to God when we are in trouble because of our sin. If God were to leave us to ourselves, we would soon relapse into sin, feel guilt, and plunge ourselves again into the same gulf of distress and misery.
The psalmist confesses that God is his hiding place in such troubled times. He knows that God is the only One who, he assuredly knows, will protect and deliver him out from all or any trouble. The Lord calls us to seek Him by His providence; He stirs us up to seek Him by His Spirit. When our hearts are softened with grief and burdened with guilt (from our sins); when all human refuge fails; when no rest can be found to the troubled mind, it is then that God applies the healing balm by His Spirit.
When we receive the comfort of our remission, our way out of sin is the grace of God. It helps us to be preserved; not to return to folly or have our hearts hardened again by the deceitfulness of sin. God keeps us from trouble, by keeping us from sin. Then in great congregation, we will want to join in songs of praise, songs of deliverance, songs of gratitude. What a blessed assurance we have – “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.” With such a divine promise, do we have any reason to be afraid or to worry? With God we are out of the reach of any real evil.
