Have you ever found yourself getting down or discouraged because of what someone else has said or even because of what you yourself are saying inside your own head?  Here’s a little perspective from Amy Carmichael:

Ps 3.2 Many are saying of me, there is no help from God.

Have you ever been discouraged and distressed because of something people said, or the voices inside you said?  Such people and such voices talk most when one is in trouble about something.  “Many are saying of me, there is no help from God.”  That was what the many said who were round about poor King David in a dark hour.  But he turned to his God and told Him just what they were saying, and then he affirmed his faith, “But thou, O Lord, art a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head.” (v. 3)

We cannot use these words if we are pleasing ourselves in anything, and doing our own will, not our Lord’s.  In that case what the many say is only too true.  There is no help for us in God while we are walking in any way of our own choice.  But when all is clear between us and our Father, even if like David we are in trouble because of something we have done wrong in the past, then those words are not true.  There is help for us in God.  He is our shield, our glory, and the lifter up of our head, and we need not be afraid of ten thousands of people [v.6]–ten thousands of voices–for the Lord our God is our very present Help.

Twice in Psalms 3 and 4 we find David taking the unkind words of others and putting them into a prayer.  It was the wisest thing he could have done with them.  The alternative would have been either to brood over them, or to talk to others of them; but no, he turns like a child to his father, “Many are saying of me, there is no help for him in God.” “Many say, How can we experience good?” [Ps 4.6]

This last “many say” will come home to some of us, I think.  It was spoken, as the first was, in a difficult time, and it was a hopelessly discouraging word: Who will show us any good?  How can we experience good?  Everything is going wrong.  There is no comfort anywhere.  This is how those voices speak.

But David is not confounded.  He refuses to be cast down, let the many say what they will.  “Lord, lift up the light of Thy countenance upon us” [Ps4.6].  If only we can look up and meet His ungrieved countenance, what does anything matter?  And we shall experience good.  “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” [Ps 27.1]