Today’s verse from the Psalms was Psalm 143:7 —<\/p>\n
Answer me quickly, O Lord;<\/em><\/p>\n my spirit fails.<\/em><\/p>\n Do not hide your face from me<\/em><\/p>\n or I will be like those who go down to the pit.<\/em><\/p>\n At first, I was a little taken aback.\u00c2\u00a0 Do we dare pray to God, “Answer me quickly”?\u00c2\u00a0 What about all I said in the “Long-Term Visions” posting?\u00c2\u00a0 What about all those verses about waiting on the Lord?<\/p>\n But look at the reason the Psalmist asks this — “My spirit\u00c2\u00a0fails.”\u00c2\u00a0 We humans do have trouble with long-term visions, and long-term trials.\u00c2\u00a0 Our spirits grow faint.<\/p>\n What comforted me about this is that God knows that we grow weary.\u00c2\u00a0 He lets <\/em>us ask him to hurry up.\u00c2\u00a0 He knows that we are human.\u00c2\u00a0 He knows that long-term difficulties are hard on us.<\/p>\n And the verse says nothing about how <\/em>God will answer.\u00c2\u00a0 In my own life, there have been several times when God answered my desperate cry quickly — not with a resolution of the problem, but still with an answer.\u00c2\u00a0 Notably, when I asked him to please end this NOW, he began giving me verse after verse after verse that said, “Wait on the Lord.”<\/p>\n The psalmist also says, “Do not hide your face from me or I will be like those who go down to the pit.”\u00c2\u00a0 This says to me, when my spirit is failing, that’s when I’m utterly desperate for God.\u00c2\u00a0 If I still have Him, I can make it through.<\/p>\n And He will not hide His face when I am desperate for him.<\/p>\n In many ways, this Psalm tells the story of my marriage falling apart:<\/p>\n Verse 1– I asked God to please come to my relief.\u00c2\u00a0 I was in trouble and desperately needed help.<\/p>\n Verse 2 — I felt horribly guilty for my part in hurting my marriage.\u00c2\u00a0 But took such comfort that God does not remember our sins forever, that God forgives a repentant heart.<\/p>\n Verses 3 and 4 — I felt horribly depressed and crushed.\u00c2\u00a0 Things got worse.\u00c2\u00a0 I felt like I might as well be dead.<\/p>\n Verse 5 — I remembered all God had done for me in the past.\u00c2\u00a0 I knew I could trust Him now.<\/p>\n Verse 6 — I spread out my hands to Him for help.\u00c2\u00a0 My prayer times took on a whole new desperation.<\/p>\n The Psalm goes on, with the verse I began with.\u00c2\u00a0 This trial is getting old — please help quickly, Lord!\u00c2\u00a0 My spirit is failing.<\/p>\n Verse 8 is a wonderful answer:<\/p>\n Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,<\/em><\/p>\n for I have put my hope in you.<\/em><\/p>\n Show me the way I should go,<\/em><\/p>\n for to you I lift up my soul.<\/em><\/p>\n Notice it’s not necessarily a solution to all his problems — the Psalmist is just asking for “word of your unfailing love,” a reminder that God’s love never, ever fails.\u00c2\u00a0 Just something to lift that failing spirit.<\/p>\n Also direction.\u00c2\u00a0 Encourage me, and show me what step I should take today.<\/p>\n The last verses of the Psalm ask for deliverance (for I hide myself in You) and guidance and ultimate victory.<\/p>\n From several different sources and in several different ways, people have been mentioning to me lately that these long-term trials are all about the big picture.\u00c2\u00a0 Ultimately, what is God doing here?\u00c2\u00a0 I can be sure that this story will ultimately be about His amazing and unfailing love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today’s verse from the Psalms was Psalm 143:7 — Answer me quickly, O Lord; my spirit fails. Do not hide your face from me or I will be like those who go down to the pit. At first, I was a little taken aback.\u00c2\u00a0 Do we dare pray to God, “Answer me quickly”?\u00c2\u00a0 What about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotional-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}