Divine Providence in the life and thought of King David as revealed in the Psalms: the

Psalms as the poetry of Providence, in that, throughout the Psalms, God the Logos

interacts with time through the person of King David, to bring about His will; David’s gift is to be able to see this at a time in the first millennium BC when very few people, save the prophets, could. God’s love and will are the same. God loves David, and knows David’s actions and thoughts, and witnesses whether David’s actions and thoughts conform to God’s will, and God blesses accordingly. If God does this for David, he does it for every human. “Thou hast traced my path . . . , and hast foreseen all my ways.”

King David and his story and responses to God as revealed in the Psalms, interspersed throughout Providential History, reveals that sense, so completely shown in Psalm 139, that God knows all, involves Himself in all, lives and things in the cosmos.

According to Psalm 139 of the Old Testament, “O Lord, Thou hast proved me, and known me.” This psalm is a wonderful source of essential knowingness, a source of truthfulness, a source in which a person knows God and knows that God made him/her, makes the individual human self.

Ironically, it was written by King David, a warrior, murderer, adulterer, and conqueror who was also a poet and singer of extraordinary talent and sensitivity. He composed verse and hymns to express piety and love, fear, the search for redemption, the need for deliverance. He knew that God knew. His awareness of God’s awareness is most profoundly stated in this psalm. “Thou knowest my downsitting and mine up-rising: Thou understandest my thoughts from afar.”

God’s love and will are the same. God loves David, and knows David’s actions and thoughts, and witnesses whether David’s actions and thoughts conform to God’s will, and God blesses accordingly. If God does this for David, he does it for every human. “Thou hast traced my path . . . , and hast foreseen all my ways.”

God is with David always–whether awake or asleep, He is part of him, as He is part of all the Creation. David was exceptional only in that he had such a profound awareness of God’s presence in every moment of his life. “O Lord, Thou hast known all things, the last and the first.”

God does not form the word on the tongue, but God nevertheless knows. Such awareness allows David the insight to be able to speak and act in a way that is apt to conform to God’s will. God is present in the past and future, before and after, in the previous step and the forthcoming step. Awareness of this is a sure guide in taking the multifarious steps of life.

“The knowledge of Thee is too wonderful for me; it is very difficult, I cannot attain to it.” The greatest counter to hubris, David knew, was the realization of the supremacy of God’s knowledge and the overwhelming gulf separating David from God. He could not come close to God or His knowledge. Rather, he must wait upon God. “O Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit?” David imagines the ways a being could escape from Being, and it is impossible. One cannot hide from God. If I imagine that I can hide in the dark, the dark is but light to God, who sees all.

“For Thou, O Lord, hast possessed my reins; Thou hast helped me from my mother’s womb.” God has been with David always, even from the womb, and has held onto his path, directed him, as David ran along through life. “Thine eyes saw my unwrought substance, and all men shall be written in Thy book.” God formed the flesh and bones and spirit, brought David out of the depths into the light, and composed the record of his life in the book of life.

“I awake, and am still with Thee.” It is not a dream, this utter connection with the Lord. Though the knowledge of the relationship is intuitive, found deep within the self, in the innermost being, nevertheless daily, upon awakening, Being is among us.

“Prove me, O God, and know my heart; examine me, and know my paths.” David has proven his devotion to God by the point of his sword; the blood dripping from his enemies is his testament to his faith in God. And he asks God, “See if there is any way of iniquity in me, and lead me in an everlasting way.” Bloodshed on behalf of God to David is not iniquity, but such are the king and warrior’s way. As the Hebrews came to know God more fully, and as the descendants of David grew to accept God’s will and ways, to accept defeat as well as victory, no longer was the sword needed. And Jesus counseled His disciples: put away the sword.

God, outside of time, seeing all simultaneously, means that there is an existence that is not of our momentary, exclusive time, but of all times and places. The Logos encompassing timeless God the father and active Holy Spirit is able to see in present tense all that was, is, and will be. Possibly in death we will experience something like this. But God can see the swallows and sparrows in Psalm 82 3000 years ago as well as those birds flying today. He sees them simultaneously. Therefore they exist simultaneously. Death is relevant only to present experience.

“The Psalms purport to be written largely by David, the Hebrew king who lived three thousand years ago. David was warrior, poet, lover, judge, sinner, man of feeling, student of God’s creation. He knew much about himself because of his search to know God. His Psalms are reflective pieces that consider the distance between the Creator and the Creation, between the all-wise and good God and the limited sinful human. God is a shepherd to His people, David wrote, a Father to His children who are repeatedly errant and wayward. These poems are wonderful psychological portraits of the human search for peace and love in a world of conflict and hate.”

“The Psalmist was a historian, recounting God’s plan for Israel, and His providential role in bringing about His ways among the people of Israel. We should all be historians in this regard, seeing God’s providential role in all things, the great and small, in the existence of all things, in our own singular existence as well.”

“Happiness comes from acting according to God’s will. This simple truth is so obvious and necessary, it should so drive all human actions and thoughts, that the alternative should appear nonsensical. And yet the alternative is what drives humans forward in time, confronting the everyday with their own actions, their own will, contrary to God’s will, God’s law.

Other living creatures are not like this. Other creatures live according to God’s will and law. Their choices are restricted to nature’s mandates. They eat, sleep, hunt, live, and die, according to what God has willed. They don’t contrive self-devised opposites, of living in an unnatural way, staving off death as long as possible, eating more than what nature mandates, seeking to break from nature by creating as artificial an existence as possible.

Humans are cursed with the ability to choose. They are cursed with apparent free will. They have convinced themselves that they can order their lives, control their destinies, make choices without (or ignoring the) consequences, tempt fate in so many ways, and live almost as gods. When it all comes crashing down, they are shocked, surprised, horrified, feel ill-used, curse God, fate, or the heavens, all the while taking no responsibility for what they themselves have contrived.

In His law will he meditate day and night . . .

God’s law, God’s word, comes in so many forms, it is impossible, as Paul said in his Epistle to the Romans, to be unaware, or pretend unawareness, of God’s Creation, God’s actions throughout time in human and natural experience. Nature is filled with the writing of God. Human history is a narrative of God’s will. Each life, human as well as others, are contrived by, designed by, God, and it takes very little thought, from humans who are otherwise so reflective and ruminating, to see the hand of God in each day of our existence.

God’s law is natural law, it is the law of the heart and soul, and we scarcely need to be told what is obvious in our deepest intuitions. As Richard Hooker, the Anglican theologian, wrote: “nature teaches men to judge good from evil, as well in laws as in other things” by “the force of their own discretion.” It follows then that “whatsoever we do, if our own secret judgment consent not unto it as fit and good to be done, the doing of it to us is sin, although the thing itself be allowable.”

Hooker said further respecting the laws of God and humans, that God is a law unto Himself, in that He is both the Author of Law and the Doer of Law, both equally in perfection. Human natural and civil laws are learned from nature, learned from God, not original to humans, who perceive disorder and chaos because we are ignorant of God’s true purposes and His eternal laws: all things work according to His will, which is good and perfect.

It follows that all things yearn for what is more perfect, all things therefore yearn for Goodness, and by this yearning, all things are Good. All things therefore yearn for God.

For the Lord knows the way of the righteous; but the way of the ungodly shall perish . . .

As Hooker wrote, “the general and perpetual voice of men is as the sentence of God himself. For that which all men have at all times learned, Nature herself must needs have taught; and God being the author of Nature, her voice is but his instrument. By her from Him we receive whatsoever in such sort we learn.”

By listening to the voice of reason and the authority of teaching over time we know the Good and are able to withstand the temptations inherent in the passing moments of fads and whims.”

Psalm 9: I will recount all Thy wonderful works . . .

“My deeds are your deeds, just as my being is enwrapped in your Being. The deeds of all humans are expressions of the Deeds of God, for God’s will is supreme; God’s will embraces all human will, all human action. To tell of God’s deeds is to tell the story of human existence. The Greek historia, inquiries into all things, human, natural, and supernatural, is what the human bard, historian, teacher, must tell, by spoken and written words, by thoughts and actions.”

Psalm 18: The Lord will recompense me according to my righteousness, . . . His statutes I did not reject . . .

“Following God’s law, living a life accordingly, in righteousness, is its own reward. Punishment for neglecting God’s will is the consequences of such folly. Impiety never leads to happiness. Contentment does not follow upon sin. Wanton pleasure is its own instantaneous reward; it does not last beyond the moment.”

Psalm 33: The eyes of the Lord are upon those who Fear Him . . .

“To fear God is to trust. To fear God is reliance upon God. To fear God is to love God. To fear God is to accept. No fear is a popular expression among the thoughtless and arrogant, who think they are in control, until they find out they are not. Then fear in the moment comes. Fear in the moment is awareness, it is mindfulness, it is knowing that God’s will is not our wills, that our thoughts are not God’s thoughts. Fear is waiting upon the Lord, patience, silence, peacefulness, watching and waiting upon the Creation.”

Psalm 44: For He it is that knows the secrets of the heart . . .

“God’s will, the Psalmist knows, is active through the heart, the mind and emotions of each person, who knows within, feels within, God’s presence, if not a recognized presence of God, at least a recognized presence of what is true and false, right and wrong, no matter how much a person resists, denies, deceives, sins.”

Psalm 46: Be still, and know that I am God . . .

“Be still in the present, be still in the heart, be still in ambition, be still in wanderlust and restlessness, be still in poverty and humility, be still in sickness and approaching death. Be still, know that God is. God has been, is, will be exalted, above all. Not me, not you. God. Be still, and know that God is your God, God’s will is your’s, God’s being is your being, God alone is sufficient, that you must rely on God, accept God, be still, to cancel the fear. Accept.”

Psalm 47: For God is the king of all the earth . . .

“Nations don’t defend themselves. Nor do humans. I cannot keep away from what is willed for me. If a gun shoots, or a flood floods, or a tornado roars, and I am in the path of bullet, water, or wind, there is little I can do to save myself. I cannot shield myself. I must rely on God, who has all of the shields. God has all of the defenses. Armies and weapons, bombs and jets, guards and armor, are illusory. They cannot hold back the inevitable. They might shield, protect, for a minute. But the inevitable is coming. It cannot be stopped. Death is ever-present. Therefore be still, wait upon the Lord, don’t imagine what cannot be done, don’t engage in fruitless folly, accept God’s will. Accept.”

Psalm 51: Against thee only have I sinned . . .

“Sin is, after all, an act in contrast to the will of God. God’s will is manifest, is thorough and overwhelming; we perceive it, know it in our hearts, and in the choice of the moment, when the weight of fear and flesh drag upon our spirits and our sense of rightness, we sometimes make the false choice, go against God’s will of love and peace, and immediately, even while the sin is taking place, regret it, and feel overwhelming guilt.”

Psalm 67: That men may know Thy way on the earth, Thy salvation among all nations . . .

“The earth’s way is God’s way: nature is a reflection of God’s love. God’s salvation is manifest throughout nature. He saves, that is guides, protects, watches over, loves, all of His creation. All nations, all tribes, not just of humans, but the varied forms of life, are products of God’s Love. Only humans struggle against God’s will. The rest of nature abides by, accepts, God’s will, God’s love and the Creation are wonderfully alive, thriving and bountiful.”

Psalm 94: The Lord is a God of vengeance . . .

“Can this be true? Does the Lord exercise vengeance upon His Creation? What can the Psalmist mean? If by vengeance the Psalmist means that the Lord punishes and condemns His creation, then one wonders what kind of Love this is. Jesus’s Father, as presented in the New Testament, is not the God of vengeance and hatred. The Psalmist reveals in so many of his psalms that he understands God to be Love. Vengeance is therefore a response to those who deny God’s love and deny God’s will and try to circumvent His plan and do what they might for their own ends. They certainly deserve vengeance, that is, punishment. And as Jesus said, they have their reward. They have punished themselves. They have avenged their own wrongs by the folly of their actions and the consequent misery that they bring upon themselves.

The Lord knows the thoughts of men, that they are vain . . .”

Psalm 139

Psalm 142: I cried to the Lord with my voice; with my voice I made supplication to the Lord . . .

“Fleeing Saul, David hid in a cave, waiting. Waiting ostensibly for what Saul would do, David was in truth waiting for what God would do. This psalm is David’s prayer for God’s benevolence.”

Psalm 143:

“The enemy has persecuted my soul; he has brought my life down to the ground; he has made me to dwell in a dark place . . .

Hiding, in pursuit, fearing for his life, are themes of these Psalms, 141, 142, 143, 144. David flees from Saul in his youth, and flees from his son Absalom, who had declared himself king, in his old age. But David did not have to flee from God. Rather, he knew God was there, with him, supporting him, protecting him.

My soul thirst for thee, as a dry land . . .

Even so, knowing the nearness of God, fears of the moment distract even so great a soul as David, so that he is parched, thirsty, waiting for God, wondering where He is. He spends a long night, hoping to “hear Thy mercy in the morning.”

I have fled to Thee for refuge . . .

Here David admits that although he is hiding in a cave, his refuge is not a place, rather God. Only God can save him. Not necessarily from fear, from death. But God can save him so that he acts righteously notwithstanding the many arrows raining down upon him.”

Good ending: Psalm 144: My mercy, and my refuge; my help, and my deliverer; my protector, in whom I have trusted . . .

“A short and complete list of what God is to David, to any person, any creature. God concerns himself with humans, with all of his creation: why?

Lord, what is man, that Thou art made known to him? Or the son of man, that Thou takest account of him? . . .

Humans are temporal creatures, living moment by moment, wrapped up in the concerns of the immediate, the falseness, the vanity, the apparent meaningless, of life.

Man is like to vanity: his days pass as a shadow . . .

The shadow waxes and wanes as the sun crosses the horizon. Daily we see our shadow, then nightly it vanishes. A tale of what humans, all creatures, are like: here today, gone tomorrow. God alone remains, the send the rain, to hide the sun, to crash the bolts of lightning, to bring peace to the storm, to clothe the day with night.

O God, I will sing a new song to Thee . . .

Deliver me from vanity, Lord. Let me sing of You, not me, not others. Let wealth, and appearance, and beauty, and the riches of the land, the fatness of the storehouses, the strength of youth, the bubbles of the moment, not distract me from You.

Blessed is the people whose God is the Lord.”