Today’s Reading: Psalm 6
Turn, LORD, and deliver me; save me because of Your unfailing love.
Psalm 6:4
Meditation: The psalmist in distress cries out to God. He addresses God as LORD, which in the original Scriptures is actually Yahweh, the name God revealed to Moses and the Hebrew people. Just as Yahweh was the God of the psalmist’s ancestors, Yahweh is the psalmist’s God too. The psalmist is close to God. He shares a relationship with God.
But there is trouble in this relationship between the psalmist and God. We read that the psalmist asks God not to rebuke him or discipline him. He faces the righteous anger of God because he has done something wrong against God. As a result, the psalmist is experiencing spiritual pain with his ‘soul in anguish,’ physical weariness in being ‘worn out from groaning,’ and emotional frailty as he describes himself feeling ‘weak with sorrow.’ In his sin, his is completely depleted. And in his despair, the psalmist cries out to God for deliverance. Not deliverance based on what he deserves from God, but the deliverance that is based on God’s unfailing love. The psalmist acknowledges that he is suffering because of his own choice to sin against God. He also acknowledges that while he cannot depend on his own ability or character to be freed from the burden of sin and be restored to a relationship with God, he can trust in God’s power and willingness to repair the brokenness caused by his own actions.
Aren’t we like the psalmist sometimes? We know God and share fellowship with Him, and we celebrate and acknowledge the truth of what He’s done throughout the ages. We enjoy a close relationship with Him and experience the joy of that relationship. But soon, we turn away from God. Maybe we fail to go where He’s leading, or do what we shouldn’t. As a result, we experience consequences of going our own way.
In our anguish we can always cry out to Him with a heart that is longing to be close to God once again. Like the psalmist, we cannot trust in what we’ve done to prove any of our own goodness in God’s eyes. We can, however, have confidence in God’s character of unfailing love and faithfulness to restore us to Him. Take heart today that whatever you’re experiencing, God can and will do this because of Who He is. We need only to trust in Him. Praise be to God!
Prayer: Thank You LORD, the God of Ages, for doing Your perfect work throughout time and space because of Who You are. May the truth of Your unfailing love guide me to trust in Your Will for my life, that I may surrender every day to You. In Jesus’ Name, AMEN.
Thru the Bible in a year (credit: Biblestudytools.com): Luke 8:1-25; Genesis 12; Psalm 6
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