Hear Me When I Call
Psalms 4:1
1 To the chief Musician on Neg'-i-noth, A Psalm of David.
Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness: thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy upon
me, and hear my prayer.
KJV
When I read the HEAR ME, it makes me think David needed help and needed it now. O God of my righteousness
plainly lets God know that he, David has nothing in him self to depend on and is not looking to himself for help. He
is looking to him, Almighty God. ... Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress. Thou hast, says “God you have
helped me before in a bad situation, have mercy upon me and hear my prayer”. Have mercy upon me says I am not
justified to ask for help here so I appeal to your mercy that is given not because you are a God of justice which you
are but also because you are a God of mercy meeting the needs of men not because they are deserving but
because they are needed. Based upon your mercy and righteousness hear my prayer.
I think there are many times David could have prayed this prayer. Like when he was pursued with out cause by king
Saul, When he sinned with Bathsheba, when one of his son's raped Tamar his very own sister, when his and
Bathsheba's son died, when his son Absalom ran him out of Jerusalem, when Joab killed that son, when he
numbered the people and so many died because of his sin, to name a few. However I think he probably could have
also prayed this prayer pertaining to his situation in 1 Samuel 30:1-19.
Everything that could go wrong seemed to have gone wrong. Except that the people that were taken captive had
not been killed. Everything else was a mess. Verse 6 said David was greatly distressed. That means he was
emotionally and physically drained. He had nothing left to right the wrong that had been done him. He was humanly
washed up and washed out. David was a mighty man of war. When you fought David you were defeated before you
started. But now this mighty man of valor had NOTHING left or NOTHING WAS ALL HE HAD LEFT. O God if you do
not enlarge me then all is truly lost. What is it for God to enlarge a man when he is distressed? It is to cause that
man to rise above all that distressed him into a place where he is able to fully recover and have fully restored to
him what the distresser had taken! This is what David needed and this is what David got. OK where did the
enlarging begin? It began when David encouraged him self in the Lord. What is it to encourage yourself in the
Lord? It is to prayerfully lift your self up into God's strength by acknowledging who you are and what you are in the
graces of God instead of focusing on all you are not and what you are not in this distressing situation. In God's
strength you are mentally and physically restored. Praise The Lord, then David prayed for direction and got it with
a guarantee from God that he would recover all that was lost. We have a record that he did recover all 1 Samuel.
30:18-19
Then David did what God told him to do. He pursued. He followed God's instructions to the letter. Notice in verse 10
that 200 men were exhausted and could go no further. My friend if you have become exhausted, don't worry, God
will send someone to stand your sted and pursue for you. You will be restored as you see happening in verse 21-
25 of this chapter. Three steps to restoration from distress. Encourage yourself in the Lord, pray and get God's
instruction as well as his guarantee, then pursue and don't quit pursuing till you have recovered all.