HELP ME!!!!!!

Monday, February 27, 2017

At Vigils this morning we were praying Psalm 18 and the following lines caught my attention:

The waves of death rose about me;

the torrents of destruction assailed me;

the snares of the grave entangled me;

the traps of death confronted me.

In my anguish I called to the Lord;

I cried to my God for help.

From his temple he heard my voice;

my cry came to his ears.

What follows is a description of God coming to save the troubled person. In concludes with:

He brought me forth into freedom,

he saved me because he loved me.

As I prayed these lines this morning I realized that I am not oppressed or threatened at the present time. Nonetheless, I could remember a time when I was in dire straits and these words truly express what I was going through. “Help me, O Lord. Get me out of this trial” I wrote again and again in my journal. And then the Lord answered my prayer and help came from an unexpected source, and my deliverance was near at hand. I was indeed brought forth into freedom by my God who heard my prayer and who came to help me out of what I regard as the most difficult time in my life.

But like I said, I am not in such a situation right now. And so I prayed the lines of the psalm for some unknown person who may indeed be begging for deliverance and freedom. And I thought of the millions of people in our troubled world right now, all the refugees and migrants, all those threatened by war and terrorism and natural disasters, and realize that this psalm is incredibly real for all the suffering brothers and sisters in our country and in the world right now.

A little later this morning, I received a phone call from someone who is going through a very difficult time himself at the moment, someone who was calling me for both solace and encouragement and perhaps a word that could sustain him in his struggle. And so I quotes the lines of this psalm to him, along with many other verses throughout the psalter that have a similar message; lines such as Save me, O God, for the waters have risen to my neck; I have sunk into the mud of the deep and there is no foothold.

I was able to offer help out of my own personal experience and out of my daily encounter with the Psalms as well as my lived experience of suffering. I recalled a passage from 2 Corinthians:

Praised be God, the Father of mercies, and the God of all consolation! He comforts us in all our afflictions and thus enables us to comfort those who are in trouble, with the same consolation we have received from him. (2 Co 1:3-4)

Never forget, my friends, that God uses everything you have ever undergone for some good purpose.

God bless you!