Answer Me When I Call

Psalm 4

To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments. A Psalm of David.

1 Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness!
You have given me relief when I was in distress.
Be gracious to me and hear my prayer!

2 O men, how long shall my honor be turned into shame?
How long will you love vain words and seek after lies? Selah
3 But know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself;
the Lord hears when I call to him.

4 Be angry, and do not sin;
ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent. Selah
5 Offer right sacrifices,
and put your trust in the Lord.

6 There are many who say, “Who will show us some good?
Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord!”
7 You have put more joy in my heart
than they have when their grain and wine abound.

8 In peace I will both lie down and sleep;
for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.

*Selah: The meaning of the Hebrew word Selah, used frequently in the Psalms, is uncertain.
It may be a musical or liturgical direction

As a joke, I often laugh and say that if noise-canceling earphones had existed during my teenage years, they might have spared me from some childhood trauma. I could have slept better during those raging nights, in battles where sharp words echoed throughout the house, cutting deep into my heart and etching themselves into my memories. Despite my attempts to escape the noise, curled up in my blanket inside my closet, it always prevailed—after all, how do you run away from words that are screaming in your head?

And growing up through those long nights, I was consistently told that I had to be confident and loud, even louder than others, to survive and make a mark in this world. But ironically, through the noise, I lost my sense of identity and confidence, and those experiences only led me to fear loud places and big emotions.

Coming back home after college and facing the same battles I faced years ago, I began to truly see the brokenness within family, marriage, and within relationships. And though I want to say I’ve become stronger and it doesn’t shake me up, when voices rise, when I am labeled and shamed, and when my faith and my heart to serve Him gets distorted into something shameful and untrue—I crumble into pieces. But having tasted His protection and relief that aided my distressed and anxious heart before, I cry out to my heavenly Father falling at His feet, trusting that His wrath is greater, and only His judgment righteous. The Lord judges and knows the truth in everything and His justice will triumph at the end. So I pray that I will be silent and be still until He moves my heart—until the anger and the sorrow turns into joy and praise.

This Psalm reminds me that He is the righteousness one. Everything is in His hands, in His judment, and in His time. In navgiating these long nights, I pray for His protection and wisdom, and even when things are so broken and I don’t see how it could ever heal or ever end, and even if I genuinely don’t think it would get better—who am I to deny what the Lord can do? and even if the Lord does do or doesn’t do, who am I to judge what the He has or hasn’t done? It doesn’t matter what I think He is doing or not, because He is the ancient of days, the righteous one, the one who sees and knows all—He is the one who leads and guides me in His loving care.

So even in these stormy and anxious nights, I lie down—lifting everything up to Him, knowing that He sees, He hears, and He delivers. I sleep—trusting that the Lord will make His children dwell in His safety, and that He will make His way through in His time.

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