The Heart's Cry: Psalm 6

Psalm 6

Lord do not reprove me in your anger

punish me not in your rage

Have mercy on me Lord I have no strength

Lord heal me my body is racked

my soul racked with pain

But you O Lord how long

Return Lord rescue my soul

Save me in your merciful love

for in death no one remembers you

from the grace who can give you praise

I am exhausted with my groaning

every night I drench my pillow with tears

I bedew my bed with weeping

My eye wastes away with grief

I have grown old surrounded by my foes

Leave me all you who do evil

for the Lord has heard my weeping

The Lord has heard my plea

The Lord will accept my prayer

All my foes will retire in confusion

Foiled and suddenly confounded

Here David comes grappling with the fact that thing have not yet worked out for him. By his question of ‘How long Oh Lord, how long?’ I get the distinct impression that he has come to God numerous times with his current state of affairs, his current worries, his current fears. He has come to God and shared with God and yet God has not changed the affairs, has not removed the worries, has not lessened the fear. David has come to God and it was ‘for nothing’ but here he comes again. How many times can we say the same?

Too often when we send our requests, our prayers to God and are met with seeming silence, we stop going to God. We move on to the next avenue, if there is another, or we just let go of whatever hope we still had that maybe, just maybe God could help in our times of need. We get discouraged, we let whatever negative thoughts that are beating us down to finally and completely win, leading us to ever darker and darker places.

I don’t know why some prayers are “answered” and some are not. I don’t know why some people are healed and some die. I don’t know why some homes are spared by a tornado and some are thrown through the air. What I do know is that we need to come to a place where even when God is “silent” we are not. We should pray and when those prayers don’t turn out how we would like them to, we should pray again and again, without ceasing as Paul writes. It reminds us that we are not alone and it reminds us that God is still at work, still speaking, still moving.

+ What prayers that you have had recently not been answered [or not answered in the way you would prefer]? What was your response?

+ Do you continue to go to God, even when God doesn’t seem to act?