Suffering. No one likes it and as we wade our way through it, most of us think “What did I do to deserve this?” or “Why me?” or “When will this be over?”
A few months ago, I had Covid. I know that many of you reading this have had it too. I had a fever that would not go away. I was tired it seemed like for forever and couldn’t make it through a day without a nap. Even now, I have this “pain” that comes on me when I am tired or my allergies are bothering me. The long term effects of Covid that so many of us struggle with.
Don’t we so often think when we are suffering for longer than we expect to say “How much longer?”
We saw that last week as we looked at David’s anguished prayer in Psalm 13. He cried out to the Lord saying, “How long, O Lord?” We left off last week with pouring out our anguished hearts to the Lord. When we are suffering, we need to tell the Lord how we feel. It is important to acknowledge our feelings. When we can name them, we then can better identify what is causing us to feel this way. If we do not identify how we feel, we tend to push our feelings down and pretend they are not there. This causes many other issues.
Once we have laid our hearts out before the Lord and let Him know how we feel, we come to the balm in Psalm 13:5, 6.
“But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.”
So often when we change from looking at the human condition to God, we see the word “but.” In other words, God wants us to see that there is contrast between who we are and who He is. There is a contrast between what humans have to offer and what God has to offer.
When we have laid out our hearts before the Lord, then we need to recognize who God is.
First, we see that God has steadfast love. He has an everlasting love for us that will not be taken away.
When we are crying out to God and asking Him how much longer, we forget that He has a steadfast love for us. We must commit to trusting in God’s steadfast love.
When suffering and disappointment and hurt rage through our hearts and lives, do we commit to trusting in God’s steadfast love?
God does not change. His love for us is steadfast. When we are in the midst of suffering and in pain, we think that God has forgotten us. We think that He has abandoned us and we are in the midst of suffering all alone.
We must make a choice. Will we choose to trust in God’s steadfast love, or will we choose to feel sorry for ourselves? Since God is unchanging and His love for us is steadfast, it is us as changing creatures to make the choice.
What does your heart rejoice in? David says that our “hearts shall rejoice in your salvation.” (Psa. 13:5). If you have “Confessed with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9), then you enjoy salvation.
If you are saved, you don’t need anything else. When life lets us down, the thing we should rejoice in and cling to is that we have been saved. Saved from eternal separation from God. Saved from eternal punishment. Saved to an eternal relationship with our Creator. What else do we need?
But, we think we need so much more. We think we need the blessings that this world says are blessings. When we trust in God’s steadfast love and we rejoice in our eternal salvation, what else do we need?
When we choose to dwell on the good things that God has given to us, it will cause us to “sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me” (Psalm 13:6).
God deals bountifully with us. The problem as humans is we choose too often to look at the bounty that the world says is bounty and think we are lacking in worldly bounty so God must not love me.
God loves you with a steadfast and bountiful love that is never self-centered on His part, is never lacking, and is continual. When we stop measuring the love of God to the worldly standards of love, we will begin to see how steadfast and bountiful His love is.
After you have poured out your heart to God and told Him how you feel (Psalm 13:1-4), you need to then focus on who God is and what He has done for you. Allow these thoughts to rule your thinking and in so doing your emotions will change from pain and hurt to joy and thanksgiving. As David so often did, you will “sing to the Lord.” (Psalm 13:6)
