Psalms 57:1 “Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast.”
Imagine ourselves as a helpless little chick pecking around for food when a hungry hawk appears above our head. The hawk will surely swoop down and devour the little chick, except for the mother hen. The vigilant old hen sees the hawk and then loudly clucks to the little chicks and they hurry to their mother as she stands up tall with her wings outstretched until the last little chick is under her wings. Then, she closes her wings upon them all and sits upon them until the hawk leaves the area. So it is with us, when the “calamities” of life come upon us, to threaten our peaceful way of life, we hear the Lord urgently Command, “Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.” (Isaiah 26:20). Like the Psalmist, now is the time to pray, “Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in thee”! To pray for mercy is to pray that our “God” will help us when we cannot help ourselves, do things for us that we simply cannot do for ourselves, for He sees things and threats that we cannot see. When we allegorically see our Lord standing tall with wings outstretched and hear His Commanding Cluck, our duty is to immediately flee to the “shadow of” His “wings”; for, there is where we will find our blessed “refuge” from our present “calamities”. Our loving Lord put it this way, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28). Putting it plainly, now is the time to urgently pray and go to and be a part of our Lord’s Church and to “Be of good courage, and let us behave ourselves valiantly for our people, and for the cities of our God: and let the LORD do that which is good in his sight.” (I Chronicles 19:13). Occasionally, there will be a little chick that ignores its mothers cluck, and it becomes the hawks next meal. To those who have God-given ears and eyes (Proverbs 20:12), let us not ignore, but hear our Lord’s Commanding Cluck and flee to the “shadow of” His “wings”, “to the rock that is higher than I” (Psalms 61:2)!