Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked. I will make a wailing like the jackals and a mourning like the ostriches, for her wounds are incurable. For it has come to Judah. It has come to the gate of My people—to Jerusalem. Tell it not in Gath… Micah 1:8-10
“Tell it not in Gath” is one of the most poetic and pathos-laden lines in all of Scripture. Gath was one of five city-states in the land of the Philistines, the avowed enemies of Israel. Goliath, the warrior-giant whom David slew, was from Gath.
We should expect our enemies, if we have any, to attack us, to take delight in our misfortune. We are not on guard, however, against the wounds inflicted by our friends, even family members, that not only take us by such surprise, but cut so much deeper. When we are abandoned by those closest to us, we feel abandoned by everybody. David, the boy-hero who slew the giant would become king of Israel, only later to have his own son Absolam turn against him, conspire to wrest the kingdom from him—even plot to kill him. It is perhaps then that David pens the words found in Psalm 142: “Look to the right and see. There is none who takes notice of me. No refuge remains to me, no one cares for my soul.”
Our circumstances would be desperate indeed if that were literally true. If no one took notice. If no one cared. Even if David’s case, there were always faithful men around him who thought more of his welfare than their own. It is indeed a blessing—a working of God’s providence—that we find those who draw near to us even as others, sometimes for reasons we can’t fully comprehend, are forsaking us.
There is, of course, one person for whom the words of the psalmist were literally true. One who really was despised and rejected by everyone. Forsaken by even his closest followers. Hanging naked on a cross between two thieves, he even cried out, “My God, my God, why have [even] you forsaken me?”
Why indeed? This one question is of such magnitude that every other question we may ask is swallowed up by it. Every tragedy that we face, every sorrow, every rejection finds its meaning—its only meaning—in the answer to this one question. And yet, the answer is more than can be expressed with mere words. So much more than can be expressed in a few sentences.
We are not king David. We are not giant-killers. We are only struggling sinners, as he was. As Israel was. But if our faith (as small at times as it may be), if our trust, if our confidence is in David’s greater Son, Israel’s Messiah, the Suffering Servant, the God-Man, the Forsaken One, the Enemy-Forgiver, then our lives, our actions and reactions, can be a book that others may read, a kind of a sermon that others may listen to.
It really is true that our lowest point can serve as a vantage point from which we can see the “big picture” of life more clearly. Life is full of physical dangers and we learn from an early age to watch out for them. But the non-physical dangers are far more serious, yet easily overlooked. Just as the cruel words of a friend or family member can injure us more than the slash of a knife, so bitterness and an unforgiving spirit is a self-inflicted wound (the only truly incurable kind), that is more harmful than any form of abuse from the outside, whether verbal, physical, sexual or otherwise. It ends up hurting even those we love and have influence over, perhaps whether we realize it or not.
In spite of everything, the LORD, through the mouth of his prophet, refers to Israel as “My people.” Let us take heart in that. May God give us the grace to always remember Whose we are (however unworthily), and Whom we serve (however feebly), and in Whom alone is our only hope of redemption.
