Psalms 120:1 – In my trouble I cried to the Lord, and He answered me. Tremendous truths are embodied in this stanza of the hymn of the people of God. First of all, God’s people have troubles in this world. They are put into distress by circumstances, people and things who are all agents of the enemy of their soul. The trouble is normally intended to distract God’s people and shake them from their faith in the Lord. It is aimed to sow the seeds of discouragement and distress in their lives and create desperate situations to see if they would run away from the true pathway created for them by their Lord. The enemy knows very well that if the faith is shaken, even the strongest might fall. He tried to sow the seeds of unbelief in the lives of many of the greatest servants of the Lord and found many of them having feet of clay rather than steel. But the Psalmist has the right remedy when it comes to situations of trouble and distress. Troubles and persecutions are powerful means to create doubts, confusions and mistrust in the minds of a believer. Let us be sure to know that the enemy will try all of the means at his disposal to weaken our faith. But his means are weapons of flesh, and are dubious. What should the righteous do at such times of trouble? There will be temptations to quit or go back from the pathway of God. Often the enemy will deceive the child of God to follow the path of the flesh and the world by taking detours to circumvent the trouble. But the Word of God admonishes us to go to the Lord in prayer and supplication and cry unto the Lord who is our refuge. He is already aware of our situation and has a plan to help us in our trouble. But He expects us to go to Him in utter desperation to admit our total inability to handle the difficulty that we are going through. When we cry unto Him, He will definitely answer us. He will help us to get out of the trouble if it would destroy our spiritual life. But if the trouble will increase our faith and build us up, He will help us to go through it, but would guarantee that it would not hurt us in any way. These experiences would thus increase our dependability on the Lord without anxiety or fear.
Dear friend, when you are confronted by the troubled realities of life, how do you respond to it? Are you seeking the mind of the Lord to see if the trouble is to purify you further so that you would be drawn closer to the Lord? Is it to increase your dependability on the Lord in all that you go through? Would it increase your faith and trust in the Lord or would it tare you down? Will you be tempted to seek help from the world and its methodologies or intelligence? When you are unable to handle the troubled situation, you are urged by the Word of God to go to the Lord and pour your heart out in His presence. There is a divine guarantee that He will answer you. But the answer might be in ways which are quiet unexpected. If we trust Him and hand our situation of trouble over to Him, He will see to it that it will help build you up and teach you great lessons in life to trust the Lord. Sometimes, He will let you go through the trouble like Daniel and his Jewish brothers, but will bring you out unhurt, and equip you for greater adventures in faith. Sometimes, you might go through a shipwreck, but you will not be hurt. At other times, He will guard you from getting deep into the trouble, but will get you out of the troubled situation as in the case of the Red Sea experience of the people of Israel. But the divine plan to allow you to learn from your situation is far more important than insulating you from trouble. The Lord’s answer to your cries is for Him to allow you to grow spiritually and depend on Him totally. Sometimes He will take us out of the trouble immediately, but at other times He will delay His answers so that we will grow in our trust in the Lord. This is how He proves to us that He is our Jehovah-Jireh! So we can be absolutely confident that the Lord is with us and will shield us whether we are in a storm, den of lions, fiery furnace, shipwreck, dungeon, deep pit, at the dried out brook, dark tunnel or at a life-threatening situation. Let us today trust in the never changing promises of the Lord and keep marching forward.
Psalms 65:5a – You answer us with awesome deeds of righteousness, O God our Savior. Thought for TodayThe awesome answers to the prayers of His children reveal the loving heart of our Heavenly Father.
