Thought for the Day 16/02/21 - Talk!

AUDIO

According to the Farm Safety Foundation, 80% of farmers under 40 years old think that mental health is the biggest problem facing the agricultural community (see HERE).

Those figures come from 2019. Since then we've had pressures brought on people in this industry by 

• disruptions to trade caused by Brexit, 
• COVID-19 
• an ever-increasing burden of regulations and paperwork
• the threat of the costs that will be placed on a sector under financial pressure by the proposed new nationwide NVZ regulations for Wales, singling out agriculture from a long list of polluters and punishing the 99% of Welsh farms which don't pollute for the 1% of offenders
• the new White Paper on Welsh agriculture which contains proposals that appear likely to end up with a lot of farms being sold and 
• the loss of the Single Payment scheme in the aftermath of restructuring post-Brexit.

Farming is just ONE illustration of the problem

Now, farmers are given as an example here simply to illustrate the ex-shepherd David's situation (and they're not the only businesses under pressure at the moment BY FAR). 

Farmers  here just illustrate what it is like to feel singled out, isolated and under attack.

And that is PRECISELY how David was feeling as he wrote the Thought for the Day verse today:

"I cry aloud to the Lord ; 

I lift up my voice to the Lord for mercy.  

I pour out before him my complaint; before him I tell my trouble."

                                                                          Psalms 142:1‭-‬2

Doing the right thing under pressure

David is in a bit of a hole ... and the contemporary mental health consensus would be that in this psalm David's doing the right thing.

The heading of this psalm tells us it was written 'when he was in the cave'. This seems to be a reference to either the incident in 1 Samuel 22:1, when David fled for his life from the King and everyone else seemed to be against him, or the one we read about in 1 Samuel 24:3 when David faithfully resisted taking it into his own hands to wreak vengeance on those who were giving him hard times. Given what he says in the psalm, it looks as if it was the first situation.

So, it's good to talk - but who will we focus on talking to?

David had spent many years shepherding sheep alone in the dry, arid desert ... and he knew what it was to fight off predators, to suffer deprivation and to suffer thirst alone, far from the help of anyone else.

Doing that, David had learned to value human help but to put his reliance in the LORD.

The LORD was ALWAYS with Him ... not only always with Him but always FOR him:

"I cry aloud to the Lord;

    I lift up my voice to the Lord for mercy. 
I pour out before him my complaint;
    before him I tell my trouble. 
When my spirit grows faint within me,
    it is you who watch over my way."

                                                  Psalm 142:1-3

The point

It's a very good thing not to bottle up our problems. 

Humans were designed to need contact with one another.

But other human beings are - quite simply - just like the rest of us: 

• weak
  
  
• fallible and (sometimes) 
  
  
• unreliable!

David's had a hard life and has learned this.

He isn't bitter vindictive about those he'd trusted who'd let him down (people like King Saul who David honoured as God's anointed but who'd betrayed him). 

But David is wise to the fact that humans - though great to have to talk to - will fail us! 

He's learned that the LORD is the One David can rely on, the one to talk to when you absolutely don't want to be let down.

The takeaway

David still had close human friendships at various stages in life, like his great friend Jonathan, or Ittai the Gittite in 2 Samuel 15, or Barzillai in 2 Samuel 17 & 19.

And, of course, we can all benefit from human relationships, especially at times of great stress and pressure, when it can be very important for us to talk about it. 

Counselling from another human being can have a good deal of value.

But human beings are only designed for human relationships because they were primarily designed to have a close personal friendship with God, but find it better and more comfortable not to be alone.

Revealingly, this psalm uses the covenant Name for God throughout, the one that emphasises God's covenant goodness and faithfulness to His people.

Telling your stuff to Him doesn't exclude the value of talking to people, but talking to God deeply about our problems is ultimately to be valued far above telling them to a 'counsellor' on the end of a telephone.

At the end of the day it's not just talk that we need, and that's why we also need to take our troubles to God.