Psalms of the Heart

Lately my heart has been troubled with things that I don’t understand. Thoughts and feelings have been placed on my heart that hurt. The most troubling part of all of it is that when I seek God he is silent. I spend time in prayer, reading, worshipping yet He is silent. It reminds me of a Psalm of Asaph. In psalm 77:1-4 Asaph says

I cried out to God with my voice—
To God with my voice;
And He gave ear to me.
In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord;
My hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing;
My soul refused to be comforted.
I remembered God, and was troubled;
I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. Selah
You hold my eyelids open;
I am so troubled that I cannot speak.

It has been a long time since I have felt that empty and alone inside. As I read the Psalms I am reminded over and over again for the silence that men like David went through. Here are just a few of the words of David

Why do You stand afar off, O LORD?
Why do You hide in times of trouble?
Psalm 10:1

How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever?
How long will You hide Your face from me?
How long shall I take counsel in my soul,
Having sorrow in my heart daily?
Psalm 13:1-2

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
Why are you so far away when I groan for help?
Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer.
Every night you hear my voice, but I find no relief.
Psalm 22:1-2

David’s words in an odd way are comforting during this time. To think that here he is the King and described as a man seeking God’s heart, yet still had times when he just cried out for God to break the silence. To know that he felt like god was hiding from him, or abandoning him. If we are truly honest we can all say we feel that same way. But do we really do what David does in these times. After David cries out to God and asks him to break the silence, he admits that it is his own sin that has brought on the silence. Then he does something amazing. He praises God for who He is. How often do we praise God in the silent times in our lives? How often do we take responsibility for our distance from Him? God is always there wanting to have fellowship with us, but too often we don’t look at ourselves as the problem, as the reason for the distance with God. What would happen if we had a heart more like David’s and could say like he did

O God, You know my foolishness;
And my sins are not hidden from You.
Psalm 69:5

Yet when we do admit our sin what do we do with it. Often times we try to make excuses for it. We place the blame on others not on ourselves. What would life be like though if we not only accepted responsibility for our choices, but we praised God during these times?

And better yet, what if we modeled our lives after Jesus. What if we took the pain on ourselves, even if it was not ours to take on? If we stopped trying to be right, but instead laid down our lives. I want to be a man that is pleasing to God. A man that is seeking the heart of God in everything that I do. So as I man I stand here before anyone who is reading this and say, I am the reason for the pain that has been caused. And I take responsibility for the things that have happened. I want to be the one that feels the pain. If you have been hurt by me in anyway, please know that I have and will continue to ask God to take away all your pain and place in on me, to let me be the one that hurts not you. If anyone has to feel pain I want it to be me. I have been praying over the words of David when he says

Put me on trial, LORD, and cross-examine me.
Test my motives and my heart.
Psalm 26:2

So I pray that I be put on trial. I pray that my motives and heart be tested. And I pray that through the silent times, I can still praise God for who He is, and not what he Does. I pray that as a man, I take the example of Christ and take the pain on myself so that others can be free.

Keep me safe, O God,
for I have come to you for refuge.
I said to the LORD, “You are my Master!
Every good thing I have comes from you.”

Psalm 69

This psalm is a plea for God’s mercy and to save David from his enemies. It is believed that it come out at a time when David had been wounded by God for some sin in his life. What I love about this Psalm is all the emotions that David seems to go through, and the fact that he was able to be honest before God about what where he was at personally with these feelings.

1 Save me, O God!
For the waters have come up to my neck.
2 I sink in deep mire,
Where there is no standing;
I have come into deep waters,
Where the floods overflow me.

3 I am weary with my crying;
My throat is dry;
My eyes fail while I wait for my God.

4 Those who hate me without a cause
Are more than the hairs of my head;
They are mighty who would destroy me,
Being my enemies wrongfully;
Though I have stolen nothing,
I still must restore it.

5 O God, You know my foolishness;
And my sins are not hidden from You.

6 Let not those who wait for You, O Lord GOD of hosts, be ashamed because of me;
Let not those who seek You be confounded because of me, O God of Israel.
7 Because for Your sake I have borne reproach;
Shame has covered my face.
8 I have become a stranger to my brothers,
And an alien to my mother’s children;
9 Because zeal for Your house has eaten me up,
And the reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me.
10 When I wept and chastened my soul with fasting,
That became my reproach.
11 I also made sackcloth my garment;
I became a byword to them.
12 Those who sit in the gate speak against me,
And I am the song of the drunkards.

13 But as for me, my prayer is to You,
O LORD, in the acceptable time;
O God, in the multitude of Your mercy,
Hear me in the truth of Your salvation.
14 Deliver me out of the mire,
And let me not sink;
Let me be delivered from those who hate me,
And out of the deep waters.
15 Let not the floodwater overflow me,
Nor let the deep swallow me up;
And let not the pit shut its mouth on me.

16 Hear me, O LORD, for Your lovingkindness is good;
Turn to me according to the multitude of Your tender mercies.
17 And do not hide Your face from Your servant,
For I am in trouble;
Hear me speedily.
18 Draw near to my soul, and redeem it;
Deliver me because of my enemies.

19 You know my reproach, my shame, and my dishonor;
My adversaries are all before You.
20 Reproach has broken my heart,
And I am full of heaviness;
I looked for someone to take pity, but there was none;
And for comforters, but I found none.
21 They also gave me gall for my food,
And for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

22 Let their table become a snare before them,
And their well-being a trap.
23 Let their eyes be darkened, so that they do not see;
And make their loins shake continually.
24 Pour out Your indignation upon them,
And let Your wrathful anger take hold of them.
25 Let their dwelling place be desolate;
Let no one live in their tents.
26 For they persecute the ones You have struck,
And talk of the grief of those You have wounded.
27 Add iniquity to their iniquity,
And let them not come into Your righteousness.
28 Let them be blotted out of the book of the living,
And not be written with the righteous.

29 But I am poor and sorrowful;
Let Your salvation, O God, set me up on high.
30 I will praise the name of God with a song,
And will magnify Him with thanksgiving.
31 This also shall please the LORD better than an ox or bull,
Which has horns and hooves.
32 The humble shall see this and be glad;
And you who seek God, your hearts shall live.
33 For the LORD hears the poor,
And does not despise His prisoners.

34 Let heaven and earth praise Him,
The seas and everything that moves in them.
35 For God will save Zion
And build the cities of Judah,
That they may dwell there and possess it.
36 Also, the descendants of His servants shall inherit it,
And those who love His name shall dwell in it.

The emotion that David starts with here, is one that I have been feeling so much lately. The waters seem to keep rising around me and I feel like I am drowning. It seems like no matter what I do I can not stop sinking. Sometimes we go through these seasons in life where all we can do is cry out to God to save us. And yes sometimes we can get weary in calling out for God. Its not that he is not there when we call, but too often we are not really calling for Him. We call for his help, yet we go our own way and do our own thing, which just causes us to sink even more.

In life often we have people that cause us a lot of pain. They don’t always have to be enemies of ours, to feel like they hate us. And when they hate us for things that we can not control, and things we did not even do, it hurts. How we act though through these times really show where our hearts are with God. What if we offered them love instead of revenge, grace instead hate. What if we restored them, even though we did nothing to them, that would truly be living like Christ did.

I have found it hard in my life to remember at times that God knows my foolishness. Isn’t it funny that we think we can hide that from him? I have found myself trying to lie to God, like that’s even possible. All because I am trying to hide my sin from him. But he knows everything, and there in no way we can hide our sin from him. He knows everything, and there is no way we can hide from home, so why not just be honest before him. I know that I am a wicked and sinful person that can do nothing outside of His grace.

I sometimes get down on myself in fear that the people who surround me are going to be disappointed in me. Like I have to be perfect so that I don’t let anyone down, when I know there is no way I can be perfect. I love how David puts it here in verse 6. I love how he turns around though in verses 13 through 18, and praises God and his love. He is so confident that God is going to rescue him. I like though that he is honest enough to say to God, “And do not hide Your face from Your servant, For I am in trouble; Hear me speedily.” There are times that we feel God is not with us, and not listening. David was able to be honest before God and just say, I need to hear from you and I need to soon. I have prayed that way many times lately. There are times we just need to cry out and say God I need to hear from you now, not that it’s always going to be answered right away, but I believe God wants us to share everything with him, even our frustrations with Him.

I love how he turns here and starts to show deep hurt. I have had moments in my life when I have felt like I was all alone. David seems to feel alone here when he says “Reproach has broken my heart, And I am full of heaviness; I looked for someone to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.” The moments that we feel this alone are the worst moments. I know there are always people around me that love and care for me, and are always there for me. Sometimes though no matter who is around, I just feel alone. Cause those people can not truly understand my heart and what it is going through. If only we could look at a persons heart and understand exactly what is going on inside it at the moment. But we can’t; only God can. And lets be honest, sometimes that’s just not enough for us at the moment. We feel alone even though God is right there with us.

David then turns to anger and wrath. I love this too. The truth is that there are times in our lives that we will feel this way. We are going to be mad and hurt and want revenge. We are going to want people to suffer for what they have done to us. That’s the human side of us, but when we die to self and let Christ rule our lives we are able to overcome that side. David is convicted of this though as you can see in verse 29. its human nature for us to feel this way at times, but when we do perhaps we can remember what David did and humble ourselves and ask God to protect us even from ourselves.

David ends this Psalm with praise to God. It’s not easy to always praise God when things are cashing around us. But we must remember that he is always in control no matter what. What if we took the time to praise Him even when things were bad? What if we stopped seeking His hand to just save us, and sought His face, and that would be enough for us. Because when we are seeking him for who He is and not what He can do for us we find His love in everything. When we dwell in his Love we find rest.

I love all the emotions David displays here, and I love his heart as he lays it all before God. I want to stop hiding all my emotions from Him and just be honest with Him, honest in my fears, my hurts, my anger, my brokenness, my emptiness, and my love. He is in control even when we think he’s not. And he loves us, unconditionally. If we know this to be true then we must also know that he is working in every situation we go through in life, and no matter what it will always be good, even when it is not what we want, for He is good.