From Jeffrey R. Holland; . . . and his book “For Times of Trouble”
Psalms 3:2-5
Many there be which say of my soul, There is no help for him in God.
But thou, O Lord, art a shield for me; my glory and the lifter of my head.
I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill. . . .
I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the Lord sustained me.
Surely in our increasingly secular, post modern world there are legions who will say to the grief-stricken and disappointed, “There is no help for him in God”. But there is help in God. He will hear our cries out of his holy hill.” God always hears our prayers and He always answers them. We may not hear His answers, or we may not recognize his answers if we do hear them, and in some cases we may not like his answers even though we say we trust Him. In those moments especially, we must remember He is a “shield.” And one of the things we need to be shielded from is ourselves. We must constantly remind ourselves that He is God and we are not. So when we have a choice between His view of our need and our own, we must yield to His divine view and His divine love.
There are two other reminders in this psalm. The first is that when times are trying, we must keep our heads up. We can’t see the rising sun or the silver lining on a cloud or God’s glory anywhere if we are always looking at the stones in our path. As an angel once said to an ancient prophet who was himself “weighed down switch sorrow,” Lift up your head and rejoice, for thou hast great cause to rejoice.”26 “Lift up your eyes,” Jesus once urged his young and inexperienced disciples.27 Every great cause requires vision. We have to see before we can achieve. God will be the “lifter of [our] head” if we will give Him a chance to do so.
An even more practical piece of advice in this Psalm is to “sleep on it”. The psalmist says, “I laid me down and slept; I awakened; for the Lord sustained me.” Not all problems disappear with a nights sleep, but our ability to face them and see more constructive approaches to them improves dramatically with rest. Macbeth speaks for everyone who has trouble when he longs for sleep that “knits up the traveled sleeve of care . . . [and is] the balm of hurt minds.”28 There was divine wisdom in putting night between two days. Don’t make important decisions or try to resolve problems when you are exhausted. Get some sleep. Your mind will be refreshed and your spirit will be quickened. You will have new strength for the task. God will hear you in His holy hill and with a lifted head you will see a new day dawning. “In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.”29 ~Jeffrey R. Holland, For Times of Trouble (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2012), 18-19
