“Oh, that I had the wings of a dove!

For then would I fly away and be at rest.”

(Psalm 55:6)

The ways of people in trouble are as innumerable and unpredictable as the ways of a serpent upon a rock. Yet, when trouble comes and our spirits writhe with the pain of it, or the shame of it, and when we probe for every possible avenue of escape open to us, we usually discover that there are at last really just three alternative escapes — the same three that the Psalmist considered long ago when he chronicled the agony of his soul in that text from Psalm 55 that we just read.

First of all, there is escape pure and simple. “Oh, that I had the wings of a dove! Then would I fly away and be at rest.” Removal of the self-physically and spiritually from the scene of life’s tortuous frustrations and vexing responsibilities and galling relationships. Take a powder. Go, man, go!

Who hasn’t felt like that? Who hasn’t seriously considered that avenue of physical exit as the most convenient and satisfying escape in time of trouble?

The Psalmist says that he could take the anguish of war and the heartbreak of civil war. The violence of enemy soldiers and the deprivations of a famine stricken city he could manage to endure and hold his ground with some measure of courage, but what pinned his spiritual shoulders to the ground and made him long for the wings of a dove to fly away and leave the whole sorry mess behind was betrayal by his friends and family: “For it was not an enemy that reproached me,” he says, “then could I have borne it, but it was thou, mine own acquaintance . . . We who took sweet counsel together and walked unto the house of God in company.” (Psalm 55:12-14)

This is always “the most unkindest cut of all” which drives the spirit of a person to the wall with a wish to fly away and be at peace: the back-biting of supposed friends, the double-dealing of trusted associates, the isolation or betrayal by the members of one’s own household.

The Commercial Appeal of July 2, 1884, carried this tragic paragraph: “The epidemic of suicides which began about a week ago is still continuing. Yesterday an old woman jumped into the Mississippi off the ferryboat, John Overton, as it was leaving the landing at the foot of Jefferson. A man filled himself with morphine and then cut his wrists. A young woman, unrequited in love, drank a bottle of opiate and died just a few hours before the young man in the case obtained a license to wed someone else. Six have killed themselves here within a week.”

So it goes, from the days of the Psalmist, to Memphis a hundred years ago, even to this present: people in real trouble are tempted to want “to fly away and be at rest.”

“And yet, in the plaintive note of this lyric wish, there is an overtone of doubt — even as the Psalmist voices it. And most of us, when we canvass this avenue of escape as a possible way out of our troubles, quickly reject it, thank God. We recognize that even if it is not always a cowardly wish, it is nearly always futile. To retreat to Eden is as fatal to the soul, as to leap to Elysium. ‘In the sweat of his face shall man eat his bread!’ This is the first mandate of life. Men and women shall not be exempt from struggle, wherever they go.” (Interpreters Bible on text)

The second avenue of escape from his troubles which occurred to the Psalmist and, undoubtedly reoccurs in the outraged thoughts of many a righteous sufferer when troubles gather round because of enemies, is this: Why not pray to God to blast these enemies of mine? “Destroy their plans, O Lord, confuse their tongues. Let death seize upon them, and let them go down into hell.” (Psalm 55:9, 15) Give them the old familiar “Go to hell treatment.”

What more satisfying escape from disagreeable circumstances and the unendurable hostility of people than to have God step in and rub them out? But conscience soon whispers that such a wish for deliverance is as unheroic, as uncritical of self, as little to be preferred, as the first wish to escape bodaciously. For wherever we are, we are imperfect people, willful creatures, who always need the correction and discipline of contrary minds.

There is great wisdom in the two-party system in our English speaking democracies. When Margaret Thatcher came to power in Britain, and her Tory party won out over the Labor party candidates in the British elections, Labor’s members of Parliament were not assassinated — rather, they continued to sit in the House of Commons, to debate the issues with the majority party, and are respectfully referred to as “Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition.” So, also in our national two-party system in the United States: a Republican victory at the polls and Ronald Reagan’s occupancy of the White House does not obliterate or silence Democratic Senators and Representatives.

So, every one of us needs both an advocate and a prosecutor. How often people have been saved from incipient folly, more by their opponents than by their flattering friends. So, the second mandate of life is that everyone must face up to the fact of the enemy; yea, even more: to the fact of our continual need of the enemy — or, at least — the opponent.

The way of Jesus is always best — to pray for rather than against our enemies, not only commending them to the mercy and correction of God, but also bringing them with our own sinful selves into God’s presence where perfect righteousness alone may be found for the correcting and tempering of our souls.

The third avenue of escape which occurred to the Psalmist, and is always a possibility in the mind of every person of faith, is expressed in those familiar words: “Cast thy burden on the Lord and He shall sustain thee. He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.” (Psalm 55:22)

Escape your troubles not by running away from them, nor by praying for the destruction of those troubling you, but by getting out from under and shifting the weight of your bag of troubles on to the everlasting arms.

         Jesus, Lover of my soul,

         Let me to Thy bosom fly —

         While the nearer waters roll,

         While the tempest still is high!

         Hide me, O my Savior, hide,

         Till the storm of life is past;

         Safe into the haven guide,

         O receive my soul at last.

“But is there not small progress here? To flee the battle, to ask God to destroy the enemy, to fly to the Lord and cast one’s burden on Him; are not these all one piece of evasion?” (Interpreter’s Bible on text)

No, this is the one legitimate, honorable escape open to everyone in trouble. For what we each need more than escape from our trouble is to escape from the deplorable illusion that we can handle everything so satisfactorily all by ourselves — that each one of us can go it alone. Trouble becomes a great blessing when it fosters faith, the kind of faith which means acceptance of the bankruptcy of self and increasing reliance upon, and trust in God.

The obsession of modern man has been self-reliance. The motto of modern man has been: “Leave it to me. I’ll handle this.” And the pitiable result is being chronicled in every person’s daily experience and every method of contemporary artistic expression. An exhibit of painting and sculpture in New York’s Museum of Modern Art presented the human form in weird shapes and grotesque images: elongated figures without facial features to express the loneliness of 20th century people; truncated limbs and animal organs which expressed the artist’s keen sensitivity to the plight of humanity today; of people who are at last recognizing the horrible futility and aching emptiness of life without God. As Berdaev said: “Man without God is no longer man.” No wonder sensitive modern artists cannot any longer paint human beings in romantic, idealistic, or even naturalistic lines — for man without God in whose image he has been created — becomes a grotesque, faceless piece of protoplasm.

Yes, we need to escape our loneliness, for this is the crucial center of all our problems and troubles. We need to escape the hollow pride of going it alone and run home to God and say with Augustine: “Thou hast made us for Thyself, O God, and our weary souls are restless until we find our rest in Thee.” And, with Katharine Von Schlegel:

         Be still, my soul, the Lord is on thy side;

          Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;

         Leave to thy God to order and provide;

         In every change, He faithful will remain.

         Be still, my soul; thy best, thy heavenly Friend,

         Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

So, the third mandate of life is this: You cannot go it alone. Cast your burden on the Lord — whatever your troubles are — and order your conduct of battle so that He who helps to bear the burden of the righteous may lighten your load.

Oh, to come through with courage and honor! Even if bitterest defeat is to be our portion, even that, if borne with honor and with God, shall be incomparable victory!