nor discipline me in your wrath.

2 Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing;

heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled.

3 My soul also is greatly troubled.

But you, O Lord—how long?

4 Turn, O Lord, deliver my life;

save me for the sake of your steadfast love.

5 For in death there is no remembrance of you;

in Sheol who will give you praise?

6 I am weary with my moaning;

every night I flood my bed with tears;

I drench my couch with my weeping.

7 My eye wastes away because of grief;

it grows weak because of all my foes.

8 Depart from me, all you workers of evil,

for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping.

9 The Lord has heard my plea;

the Lord accepts my prayer.

10 All my enemies shall be ashamed and greatly troubled;

they shall turn back and be put to shame in a moment.

Have you ever felt like your life was completely upside down? Have you ever felt like no matter how hard you worked or how hard you tried that there was no end in sight? I felt like the harder I worked the less productive I got. That there seemed to be no end in the labor ahead and no matter how hard I tried I could never get ahead financially. I was stuck in a job where I was working many hours and yet my pay did not seem to increase or decrease with regards to the amount of hours I was working. The more I tried to work less hours, more hours seemed to get put on my plate. It was in that time that I was crying out to God, asking for deliverance, looking for help from the Lord and it seemed as though my prayers  were unable to reach Him. I remember time after time as though nothing was going to change. Have you ever felt this way, like nothing was ever going to change? That no matter how hard you worked or how much time you put in that, nothing was ever going to get better?

We get this way at times, we get tempted to give up on seeking the Lord. I mean, after all it doesn't seem like He hears us or if He does hear us, it's not like he cares or at least that's how it feels. If God is really for us, it seems like the whole world is against us, and if we're honest it feels as though the world is winning. We get this way at times, we want to give up, we spend time being angry, we spend time crying or weeping, we get frustrated, and we want to throw our hands up and surrender. I even think even if God does come through, won't he be upset or angry with me because of my disbelief, because of my doubt. Our past with God proves that he has carried us through, He has delivered us, He has blessed us. If we are honest what we are upset about seems to be so petty in comparison to eternity.

The scriptures offer us comfort in the book of Psalms. When we find ourselves weeping and crying, we need to remember that God hears us! Even when we don't think there is anybody listening, God hears us. We must remember that our feelings only tell us the truth of how we feel, and that is not 100% of the truth. There comes a tipping point in our emotional wrestling where we stop and say no more. God has heard me. It might be a decision to at first and have extremely limited feelings of confidence. When I read the psalm of King David it seems as though he starts off very much downtrodden, very much depressed, and as the lines of the songs progress he gains more reassurance to the point of him becoming bold with confidence in God. That is how it can be for us.

In the middle of being overwhelmed with the world, try reading this psalm out loud. There is great power in the scriptures. There is great power in declaring God's Word.