Monday 12 October, 2020

For the director of music. With stringed instruments. According to sheminith. A psalm of David. 1 Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath. 2 Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am faint; heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony. 3 My soul is in deep anguish. How long, Lord, how long? 4 Turn, Lord, and deliver me; save me because of your unfailing love. 5 Among the dead no one proclaims your name. Who praises you from the grave? 6 I am worn out from my groaning. All night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears. 7 My eyes grow weak with sorrow; they fail because of all my foes. 8 Away from me, all you who do evil, for the Lord has heard my weeping. 9 The Lord has heard my cry for mercy; the Lord accepts my prayer. 10 All my enemies will be overwhelmed with shame and anguish; they will turn back and suddenly be put to shame.

Ever felt devastated, like the world is against you, and particular people!!  I love how the Bible is so true to life – no polished lives here, just the raw reality of life as we experience it.  Here the Psalmist hangs out life when we are under pressure with images that we can identify with.  ‘Eyes to weak with sorrow’, ‘flood my bed with tears’.  The Bible doesn’t hold back.  I love this about God’s Word.  Religious books polish the presentation of life – the Bible – living and active – doesn’t sugar coat faith in Jesus – we get to cry out to the God who never fails, even in the words of anguish of life when everything is against us!  Our challenge is for us to cry out like the Psalmist as well as experiencing the deliverance the Psalmist experienced.

Father, thank you that you are not so high and mighty that you are distant from us.  You enter our reality now through prayer and we are certain of this because you sent Your Son to enter our experience and He experienced life in its fullness of emotion, physicality, joys and disappointments, even to death.  So we cry out to you in our experience knowing you will deliver us!

Written by Ps. Richard Botta