4. Merciful…

Have mercy on me Lord, for I am faint; heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony. My soul is in deep anguish. How long, Lord, how long? Turn, Lord, and deliver me; save me because of your unfailing love.

Psalm 6:2-4

When my father died in 2015, I glimpsed, in my grief, just a tiny bit of what many suffer through anxiety and depression. I am a person who invariably copes whatever the circumstance. I push through, I get on with what needs to be done. Yet during this time I would find myself not being able to order my thoughts. I would cry without warning and without control.  I couldn’t make decisions and forgot the simplest of things. I felt like I was in a fog that wouldn’t lift.

David knew suffering and suffered himself from deep depression and anxiety at times in his life. This psalm is an outpouring of one of those times and he cries out to God to turn to him, to deliver him, and save him from his anguish, his deep anguish, and restore him.

He doesn’t ask God to do this because he is the almighty God, or because justice need to be done, or because David deserves it. Instead, he asks God to restore him because of his unfailing love. He knows that God loves him and that his love will never fail him.

It is out of love, unfailing and merciful, that God acts. God’s justice, God’s might, God’s compassion, and mercy all flow from this unfailing love.

More recently I have been through major illness which resulted in 40 days of hospitalisation following surgery to remove my larynx (voice box) which was diagnosed with cancer. During that time, I had to have additional surgery due to haemorrhaging in my neck and endured over a week with no visitors (not even my husband) because of a Covid19 lockdown in our state. I couldn’t talk (no voice box!) and communicated via a note pad. I remember several times when I couldn’t sleep and all I wanted to do was cry and how wonderful the nurses were. But it was in God that I was able to find peace in those times as I cried out to him in my anguish and pain and he gave me peace in the storm.

Wherever we are, however we are feeling, whatever we are suffering, God’s unfailing love is there for us to call upon for deliverance and restoration.

Let’s not go to God as a last resort, after all other avenues have failed. Let’s go to him first. Let’s cry out in our anguish as David did: Have mercy on me Lord, deliver me, save me because of your unfailing love.

Prayer: Lord, thank you that when we are in those times of deepest despair, when we find ourselves unable to move forward, to even think straight, it is in those times that you are there, you carry us in your loving arms. You comfort, you nurture, you deliver us when we cry to you.

Amen

Action: Today, if you are in a place of anxiousness, a place of pain, a place that is dark and unending, call out to God as David did. Wait on his great love for you, his merciful and unfailing love. Let him come and deliver you from the burdens you are carrying. There is no need for fancy words. No need for a special place. No need for anything – just call out right where you are with the words that come from your heart, and he will meet you in your need.

Journal your thoughts…