WORST WEEK EVER: When is God when I’m sighing with despair?
- Psalm 5:1.
- Most of us have faced times when problems and difficulties and struggles leave us with little more than a heart-heavy sigh.
- It’s almost like the latest blow knocks the wind out of us yet again as we exhale a sigh of despair.
SOME (KINDA, SORTA) GOOD NEWS: “Sighing” moments have always been normal on the walk of faith.
- Psalm 5:2.
- There have always been times of struggle and waiting and difficulty. After all, even if we’re living passionately for Jesus, we still have to deal with fallen people and a fallen world.
- We’d like to make the Christian walk a problem-free stroll in the park, but that’s just not the way the world works.
WHAT NOW?
- We don’t have three easy steps to fixing everything or four things to magically end your problem, but David does lay a few hints that may be helpful to us.
1. Am I lifting up prayers of exasperation or expectation?
- Psalm 5:3.
- It’s so easy to leave our prayers at a place of just crying out in desperation and consternation, but not have expectation that God is going to come through.
- I’ve said before that delays are not denials.
- In v. 3, David speaks of coming before God morning after morning, then waiting in expectation. It’s hard not to just mouth the words while losing our sense of belief that God is going to eventually answer.
- We need to remember that the greatest of the conditions of answered prayer is faith. Jesus spoke of the importance of faith again and again.
- How do I do better at praying with expectation? One idea is to focus our prayers on either a specific Biblical promise or, if we don’t have that, on God’s goodness generally.
a. A specific Biblical promise.
- Isaiah 26:3; Matthew 6:33; 1 Corinthians 10:13; 2 Corinthians 1:19-20; Philippians 4:19; James 1:5; 1 John 1:9.
b. God’s goodness generally.
- 1 Samuel 16:7; 2 Chronicles 16:9; Proverbs 15:8; Jeremiah 29:11; Jeremiah 33:3; 2 Corinthians 4:17; 1 Peter 5:7.
2. Is joy limited by my circumstances?
- Psalm 5:11.
- Happiness is generally controlled by our circumstances. In fact, it’s pretty much the definition of happiness that all is going well and problems are far away.
- Joy, though, is not dictated by circumstances.
- It’s interesting that David brings up joy at the close of this psalm. He’s shared his sighing and the strength of his enemies. Yet, as he closes, he speaks of “being glad,” “sing[ing] for joy,” and “rejoicing” – all in v. 11.
- Joy has more to do with the larger context of what’s going on around us than just our immediate circumstances.
- An example: How can you have joy at a funeral? Well, even if you feel a sense of loss, you can still have joy knowing that your Christian loved one is in God’s presence and that you’ll see her again someday.
- Another example: How can you have joy in the midst of troubles at work? Everyone else may be overwhelmed by downsizing rumors, but if you are confident that your security is in God and not in you paycheck, you can still have joy.
3. Do I still believe that I am a “favored” one?
- Psalm 5:12.
- In v. 12, David uses the words “favor” and “bless.” These are both powerful words.
- “Bless” speaks to God’s desire to bring good things into our lives. Not always material, the greater “blessings” are the spiritual gifts that gives to us.
- “Favor” speaks of God’s love for us and treatment of us as His “favored” or “favorite” ones. Like a favorite niece that you just love doing special things for, God looks upon us with His favor.
- This is important on the issue of sighing with desire because we can lose our faith in God’s love for us. We can begin to doubt that He cares for us at all, let alone that we are favored by Him.
- In fact, we often can receive other blessings in our life, but have one major negative situation or lingering prayer request and allow that to consume all of our attention and thoughts.
- We need to keep the larger picture in sight, realizing that there are valid reasons for a delay in the answer we’re hoping for.
- One of my favorite verses is Psalm 37:4, which speaks of God delighting in us and desiring to give us the desires of our heart.
