When trouble comes, and it will, don’t start with the trouble. Start with the Rock who pulled you out of the pit. Don’t hide His faithfulness. Don’t despair as if He’s gone. You are poor and needy. But the Lord takes thought for you. He is your help. He is your deliverer. And He will not delay.

The right way to face this world is in Psalm 40. It’s sober. It’s true. It doesn’t pretend. This is a song for people like us… sinners stumbling forward, trying by the grace of God to finish the race in a world full of ruts and sinkholes.

Most Psalms open with a cry for help and close with relief. Psalm 51 does that. David begins begging: “Have mercy on me, O God… blot out my transgressions.” He ends with his resolve: “Then I will teach transgressors your ways… my tongue will sing of your righteousness.” That’s the rhythm: trouble, then deliverance.

But Psalm 40 breaks the pattern. It begins with memory and ends with need. David starts by looking back at what God has done for him. Only then does he lay out his present misery.

That order matters. Because life doesn’t wipe clean when the sun comes up. The slate isn’t cleared. Yesterday’s trouble is still trouble today. It sits on the edge of the bed and waits for you. David teaches us to face those troubles by remembering what God has already done.

We’re quick to forget. Israel forgot in the wilderness. God hammered Egypt with plagues, split the Red Sea, rained bread from heaven, brought water out of rock. And still, they complained. At the shore they cried, “Better to serve Egypt than die here.” Hungry, they longed for Egypt’s meat pots. Thirsty, they accused Moses of trying to kill them. Over and over, God saved them. Over and over, they groaned.

We’re no better. Doom fills our mouths at the first sign of trouble. We forget the God who delivered us last week, last year, last night.

David takes another path. He begins with God’s mercy: “I waited patiently for the Lord; He inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock.”

He was stuck. Helpless. Like a man in a dungeon pit, walls slick with mud, sliding back down every time he tried to climb out. He couldn’t save himself. But God heard. God reached down. God set his feet on solid ground.

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