Imagine sitting in the waiting room at your doctor’s office and he comes in … with a very serious look on his face. “God must be really, really mad at you because you have cancer.” That was David’s reaction when he came down with a serious illness. “O LORD, do not rebuke me in Your anger, or discipline me in Your wrath” (Psalm 6:1). The fact that David thinks that the LORD is rebuking him and disciplining him indicates that he sees his illness as a punishment from God.
He begins to plead with God to take His hand away. “Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing … my bones are shaking with terror.” Not only are his “bones” shaking with terror, but so is his “soul” (v. 3). In David’s time, the “soul” was literally the throat area “where life was especially visible in the breath and heartbeat” (Clifford, R.J. Commentary: Psalms 1-72. Nashville: Abingdon Press; 2002; p. 61). David’s “bones” and “soul” are in terror because of the severity of his illness and the thought that it might get worse or go on forever … and it is apparently already pretty bad. “How long?” he cries (v. 3). His suffering would be somewhat more bearable if God would let him know that his suffering will eventually come to an end. We can relate, amen? Will it get worse? When will it end? The uncertainty of the future can add to our suffering when we are ill, amen?
And then David calls upon God to be “gracious” and remove His rebuke, His discipline from him, to end his suffering. “Look at me,” he cries. “I am languishing away here. My whole body, even my soul, is spent. Why make me suffer so? Whatever I’ve done, isn’t this punishment enough? Have mercy. Turn from Your wrath, O LORD. Stop this terrible punishment and heal me. Haven’t I suffered enough?”
David then appeals to God’s “hesed” … God’s “steadfast” love for him: “… deliver me for the sake of Your ‘hesed’ … Your ‘steadfast love’” (v. 5). “Hey, God, it’s me, remember? You chose me and made me king because you know my heart and I know Yours.”
Listen to the intimate and honest way in which David speaks to God. He mentions God’s holy and divine name … Yahweh or Jehovah … eight times. When he cries out to the LORD to “turn” in verse 4, the word “turn” is an imperative, a demand … in this case, an ardent and forceful wish or request. It doesn’t suggest authority … one doesn’t command God … but one of confidence.
David goes from pleading for mercy to appealing to God’s hesed to pointing out the pointlessness of his presumed death. Sometimes it feels that way, doesn’t it? If the only outcome is my death, why not end my life sooner than later? Why draw out my suffering if the only way my suffering can end is in my death? I have been at the bedside of many a sick and suffering soul who have prayed to die so that their suffering might end. I know this might sound, well … I know that some of you understand what I mean when I say that sometimes death is a mercy.
David’s not ready to go yet. “For in death there is no remembrance of You; in Sheol who can give You praise?” Sheol is a dark and shadowy place where the dead take no part in the activities of the living … such as praising and worshipping the LORD. If one is no longer among the living, one cannot praise and worship the LORD. This seems like it appeals to God’s vanity. “If You kill me then I can’t praise You” as if that’s why God made us … and it is, but it is not the soul reason by any means that He created us and takes such intimate and personal care of us. David’s point in verse 5, however, is that if he is dead, he, who loves the LORD with all his heart and soul and mind, won’t be able to worship and praise God or write more songs remembering God’s love for him and his love for God … and we, who also love the LORD with all our hearts and with all our souls and minds, won’t have David’s wonderful songs to help us praise God and remember Yahweh’s mighty acts of love. It is, as David tries to make the case here, in God’s interest to keep the poet and singer out of Sheol.
And then his pain, as pain does, breaks through his thoughts and returns him to the consciousness of his painful reality. “I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears. I drench my couch with my weeping. My eyes waste away because of my grief” (Psalm 6:6-7). Again, this is an appeal for mercy as he describes his “languishing” in greater detail. He is not just physically weary, he is emotionally exhausted as well. His tears symbolize his interior anguish and is our body’s way of communicating emotional suffering and pain as well as physical pain and suffering. Since they didn’t know about “tear ducts” in David’s day, they could only assume that tears came from somewhere in the abdomen and made their way through a person’s eyes. His constant weeping makes his eyes “waste” away just as his illness is causing his body to languish and waste away. Some of you have cried those tears, amen? Have cried until there were no more tears left to cry. Have been in so much pain that you can’t speak but only moan.
Pain is also deeply personal and private. We don’t like people with their sad faces standing around us wringing their hands. They mean well and we know that their love for us is causing them to suffer … which only adds to our suffering and so we try to hold on, to not let on just how much we’re suffering. But late at night, when nobody is around and it is just you and your pain and your suffering, that’s when you can just let it out. David floods his bed with tears, he drenches his couch with his weeping (v. 6). “The bed is a place where one’s deeply personal attitudes and feelings are freely expressed” (Clifford, Ibid., p. 62). Alone, in the middle of the night, we, like David, feel our pain and can express it freely.
Except that David is not alone. God, who neither slumbers nor sleeps, is there with us in the middle of the night and He hears our moaning. He sees our tears. He knows how much we truly suffer. And David is hoping that God, who understands just how great David’s suffering is, will have mercy and withdraw His punishment, end his pain and suffering, and save his life.
And then David mentions his “foes” at the end of verse 7. It’s not clear what he means or whom he might be describing. Perhaps he’s gone from blaming God for his illness to blaming his enemies who might have put a curse on him. He could be talking about the people who shunned him because of his illness. People who were sick were, by definition, sinners to be shunned lest you become not only infected with their physical disease but their spiritual disease as well.
Perhaps verses 8 gives us a clue. “Depart from me, all you workers of evil, for the LORD has heard the sound of my weeping” (v. 8) … “you workers of evil.” If you’ve ever been to the hospital then you understand what I’m about to say. Just about the time you fall asleep, what happens? The nurse comes in to give you a sleeping pill or take some blood or something, amen? And then they wake you up a 6 a.m. to take your vitals and see how you are doing. They mean well. They’re just trying to do their jobs, but …. Friends and loved ones come in and out. They hover around your bed. They make small talk and try to be encouraging. They love you. They mean well, but …. Sometimes you just want to yell, “Get out and leave me alone.” Perhaps you resent their pity, the fact that you can’t take care of yourself and have to rely on their help. Perhaps it’s just the way they look at you, the way they fumble around when they talk to you … like you’re a sick blob lying in a bed and they don’t know what to do or say. Their worry is a sign of their love and you appreciate it but it also reminds you of how sick and helpless you are. Don’t get me wrong. The love and support of loved ones and friends is important but on some level … well, I’m sure that some of you understand what David means when he describes the people who are concerned about him and who are trying to take care of him as “evil doers.” It doesn’t come from a lack of appreciation but physical pain and suffering can be overwhelming and bring out a desire to just be left alone.
Verse 8 signifies a significant change in David’s attitude, however. While his criticism of those who are trying to help him seems caustic and harsh, coming as they do from out of his pain, he adds a note of hope: “…for the LORD has head the sound of my weeping. The LORD has heard my supplication; the LORD accepts my prayer” (Psalm 6:8-9).
Remember what David said in verses 6 and 7 … how he moaned and wept in his bed? As I said, David knew that he was not alone. That God was there with him in his most private and honest moment … and that God cared … that God didn’t just coldly stand by his bed and watch his suffering but was moved by it because of His “hesed” … His steadfast love … for David. If we are made in God’s image and if the people we love and who love us are moved by our suffering, then it follows that God, whose love is deeper than the ocean and higher than the heavens and broader than the universe, would be moved by David’s pain and suffering, amen?
This might seem obvious to us but it’s not so obvious to a lot of people. Remember, David and his contemporaries saw sickness as a punishment for sin. As he lies in his sick bed, begging God to end his suffering, he could have just as easily stayed stuck there … blaming and resenting God for his suffering … and trust me, many people do. Many people are like Job … professing their innocence and decrying the injustice of God’s punishment. Some may see it as God punishing them for their sins but feel that the punishment far, far exceeds their sin or sins. The devil can use those kinds of fear and doubt to steal our hope.
It’s easy … in fact, it’s a delight … to worship and praise God when we’re healthy and feeling good, amen? But to praise and worship Him in the midst of our pain and suffering, that takes a much deeper level of faith. David hasn’t been healed … yet. He is still as sick as he was when he started writing this poem … but he knows that God is aware of his pain and suffering … he knows that God has heard his prayers and that his prayers have moved God. Even though God hasn’t answered his question in verse 3 … “how long” … he knows that at some point God will lift His hand, God will put an end to his pain suffering. He doesn’t know how or when but he knows that God can and will. He knows that God will turn and deliver him for the sake of His steadfast love. Even if it ends with his death, it is still a sign of God’s “hesed” and mercy.
Verse 10 gives us another understanding of what David could have meant when he speaks of his foes and evildoers in verses 7 and 8. David was a king and, well, not everybody loves and admires the king, amen? He no doubt had many foes … like his predecessor, King Saul, or his son, Absalom. And there was no doubt that there were those who plotted against him or at least hoped and prayed for his downfall or demise. “All my enemies,” says David, “shall be ashamed and struck with terror; they shall turn back and in a moment be put to shame” (Psalm 6:10). His enemies, who hoped for his death and annihilation, will be filled with terror when they see him rise up from his sickbed and sit upon the throne of Israel once more. In other words, those who have been gloating over him while his bones and soul shook with terror will be the ones who shake in terror in the end … not from illness but from his restoration to health and vigor by Yahweh … who not only determines David’s fate but the fate of his enemies and detractors as well.
We understand a great deal more about disease and illness today than they did in David’s time but we still deal with many of the same doubts and fears, amen? We know that disease and illness are the result of some break down in the body or the invasion of some micro-organisms but we can still go where David went and see our affliction as a punishment or judgment from God, am I right? We lie in our sickbeds and we ask God why this is happening to us. Some may see it as a sign of judgment or punishment. When my brother Ron died, he saw it as a punishment from God even though his sickness and death were the result of many years of smoking and drinking. I’m sure that God tried to warn Ron and “turn” him in as many ways as He could but the truth is that everyone of us here is going to die … and that has nothing to do with the state of our souls. My favorite bumper sticker says: “Eat healthy, exercise, die anyways.” You can be the saintliest saint that ever walked the earth … never drink, never smoke, never swear, never cheat or lie or steal … and guess what? Because of Adam and Eve’s rebellion, death has become a part of our life experience. We all know this, right? The thing is … we don’t want to have to suffer while we’re on our way out of this life. As one Christian author put it, however: “Death does its work in increments: the erosion of teeth, the growing inflexibility of limbs, the dulling of the senses” (Jeremiah, D. What Are You Afraid Of? Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers; 2013; p. 34).
The bottom line is this … if you live long enough, you’re going to get sick, your body is going to fall apart … and that’s just a fact of life, my friends. I’m not telling you anything that you don’t already know, am I right? “Maybe you’re battling an illness right now. Maybe it’s just around the next corner, or perhaps someone dear to you is fighting desperately for his or her health. Disease is prevalent and inevitable, but how we understand it makes a great difference” (Jeremiah, Ibid., p. 36). I don’t believe that God uses sickness or poor health as a way of punishing us … sickness and death are just part of the order of things … for now … but I do believe that God can and does use sickness as a way to strengthen and deepen our faith in Him.
The word “disease” is made up of the prefix “dis” and the word “ease.” “Dis” means “not.” “Disease” means “not easy” or “not at ease.” As we saw in David’s case, disease and ill health disrupt our lives. It robs us of our comfort. It forms barriers with other people. It makes us weak and have to depend on other people … from our friends and family to doctors and nurses. It can cause our bones and our souls be filled with terror and to weep and soak our beds and couches with tears. It can cause us to question and doubt God, to try to make deals with God, even get angry to the point that we turn our back on Him.
The first thing that we should do is what David did … talk to God … openly and honestly. David questioned why God was punishing him and then he asked God to have mercy on him. He asked God to remember him and to remember His love for him and put an end to his suffering.
Should we only pray for God’s intervention when things are serious? No. “The Lord is near,” says the Apostle Paul, so do “not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:5-7). I mean, COVID has produced a lot of serious prayer, amen? “If we can pray over serious illness,” says Dr. David Jeremiah, “why shouldn’t we pray over all illnesses? Nothing that hurts us is too small for [God’s] concern” (Jeremiah, Ibid., p. 45; italics the author’s).
And if we pray to God about everything, shouldn’t we also praise God in everything. Sometimes we pray and thank God for delivering us from a major illness … sometimes we don’t … but do we thank Him for helping us get through the flu or a headache? We may need a doctor’s help to get better. We may need treatment or medication. “When we face a serious disease, the first thing we should do is talk to God. Ask Him for guidance, and then take advantage of the best medical assistance available” (Jeremiah, Ibid., p. 44). Ultimately, however, it is Jehovah Raphe … “The LORD Who Heals” … who heals us. We give Him thanks for the doctors and nurses, for their skill and their training, for their dedication and theirs hearts. We give thanks to Jehovah Raphe for the scientists and researchers who make the medication and who discover the workings of the human body and how to fix it or at least alleviate our suffering. We thank God for the manufacturers who make the medicine. We thank God for hospitals and pharmacies where we can get the medicine and the treatments that we need. God has a habit of using people, their gifts, and their resources to carry out His plans. As C.S. Lewis put it, God “seems to do nothing of Himself which He can possibly delegate to His creatures” (“The Efficacy of Prayer.” The World’s Last Night and Other Essays. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Worlds; 1960; p. 9.) Whether God heals us through a miracle or through the miracle of medical science, we should acknowledge and praise Him as the source of all our healing, amen? Thank God for medicine. Thank God for the prayers of friends and loved ones, amen? How much of our healing comes from prayer and how much from medicine? It doesn’t really matter because all healing comes from above, amen?
The other thing that David’s prayer did was re-align or focus his mind on the source of his hope. “The human imagination is a powerful force that can create beautiful visions of a desirable future or conjure up every worst-case scenario” (Jeremiah, Ibid., p. 48). At the beginning of his prayer, David was consumed with the worst-case scenarios. God was punishing him … for how long? It seemed like his tears would never end. “These dark products of the imagination can put us in the grip of fear – a place God would never have us go” (Jeremiah, Ibid., p. 48). In the process of speaking to God, David turns his thoughts around. The Lord has heard the sound of his weeping. The Lord has accepted his prayer. His enemies will be dismayed when they see him rise up from his sickbed.
“God has not given us a spirit of fear,” Paul tells his disciple Timothy, “but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7). Like David, we can have the power and the love and a sound mind that can sustain us during difficult times or times of illness and actually have hope.
In her book, In the Arena, missionary Isobel Kuhn described her experience with breast cancer. There wasn’t a whole lot of treatment options in the 1950s … and so she understandably began to panic and anticipate the worse. If she coughed, she was afraid that her cancer had spread to her lungs. If she got a canker sore in her mouth, she was certain that she had mouth cancer. “Every minor ache or twinge was a harbinger of dire health consequences” (Jeremiah, Ibid., p. 33) … until she remembered the Apostle Paul’s advice in 2nd Corinthians 10:
“For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2nd Corinthians 10:3-5).
Isobel Kuhn realized that the real enemy was something too deep for the surgeon’s scalpel. It lay in the invisible world of her imagination. In the final chapter of her book, she wrote:
“I had to refuse to allow my imagination to play with my future. That future, I believe, is ordered of God, and no man can guess it. For me to let myself imagine how or when the end would come was not only unprofitable, it was definitely harmful, so I had to bring my thoughts into captivity that they might not dishonor Christ” (Kuhn, I. In the Arena. Singapore: OMF Books; 1960; pp. 225-232).
You ready for the hard part? You sure? Paul says that “in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). What? He couldn’t possibly mean counting our blessings when we’re soaking our bed with our tears and drenching our couches with our weeping? Surely not! The Bible doesn’t say “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, when we are well and healthy, has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3; italics mine.). Actually, it says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Ibid.). He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing whether we are strong or weak, sound of body or wracked with pain. “From the fullness of His grace,” says the Apostle John, “we have all received one blessing after another” (John 1:16).
How is that possible, you may ask? Well, David began counting his blessings in Psalm 6 BEFORE they happened, remember? “All my enemies shall be ashamed” (Psalm 6:10; italics mine) … “shall be ashamed” … “shall” … as in they haven’t been put to shame yet because he is still confined to his sickbed … but when he arises from that bed … they, his enemies who took advantage of his illness and hoped for his death “shall turn back and in a moment be put to shame” (Psalm 6:10; italics mine) … again, “shall” … as in the future.
Dr. Ed Dobson was the senior pastor of Calvary Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, when he was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease … a degenerative and terminal illness. He maintained his pastoral ministry for as long as he could but eventually it got to be too much for him and he had to reluctantly give up his pastoral responsibilities. “In the midst of my disease,” Dr. Dobson wrote of his experience, “I began blessing God for all the gifts of life” (Dobson, E. Prayers and Promises When Facing a Life-Threatening Illness. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan; 2007; p. 56). He began using a traditional Jewish blessing that begins: “Blessed are You God our God, King of the Universe …”.
“I use this official formula (I learned to do it in Hebrew), and I bless God for each day. I bless God for the ability to shower and clothe myself. I bless God for the ability to button buttons. I bless God for the ability to lift food to my mouth even though I can no longer do it with my right hand. I bless God for everything I can do and for every gift that comes from Him” (Dobson, Ibid., p. 56).
As Dr. Jeremiah observed, our blessings become clearer, richer, and more meaningful in times of sickness.
“Something therapeutic happens deep in our hearts when we count those blessings. We can rejoice in the prayers of our friends, in a note from a loved one, in the compassionate care of a conscientious nurse, in the smile of a doctor, in the verse of a hymn that comes to mind, in a neighbor who mows the lawn, in a Bible verse that shows up at just the right time, in a prescription that lessens our pain, in a column of sunlight that cuts through the window of the room, in the intricate design of a flower in a nearby vase, or in the innocence and cheer of a grandchild who visits us” (Jeremiah, Ibid., p. 50).
It is liberating, he goes on to say, that our disease doesn’t define who we are … that we are more than just our aches and pains … although some of you probably feel that all you are right now is aches and pain, amen?
I had the rare pleasure of becoming friends with a man named Keith. He was very instrumental in my early recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction. He had a peace and calm about him that I envied. Whenever I would blast him with my problems, he would gently point out that my problems really weren’t as big or as earth shattering as I was making them out to be. It took me awhile but then it hit me … his wisdom, his insight came from the fact that he was dying … and that gave him a clarity and focus of what was important in life. So often we take our health for granted, that each day is a given but for him and for countless others, they realize that every day is a blessing and a gift from God that should be savored. And we should also savor each day because we never know how many more we may have … healthy or otherwise, amen? The Apostle Paul doesn’t say that we should be thankful FOR all things … like pain and sickness … but give thanks IN all things … including illness. “If we ask God for a calm, thankful heart that sees all the blessings His grace imparts,” says one Bible commentator, “He can teach us many lessons in illness that can never be learned in health” (Jeremiah, Ibid., p. 52). As the old Puritan Preacher Thomas Watson put it: “A sick-bed often teaches more than a sermon” (Watson, T. A Divine Cordial: Romans 8:28. (La Vergne, TN: Lightning Source, Inc.; 2001; p. 20).
Disease and illness may limit our service to God and to our fellow man but as long as we’re on this earth there is work that we can do. As the great basketball Hall of Famer Jerry West once said: “You can’t get much done in life if you only work on the days when you feel good.” As Isobel Kuhn battled cancer, she found that staying busy was good medicine for her. “Though largely confined to bed, she drew up a daily schedule that fit within the limits of her strength. She worked on her book, engaged in a ministry of prayer, read, studied, and rejoiced in letters and cards that came from all over the world” (Jeremiah, Ibid., p. 53). When she lacked the strength even for these activities, she wrote:
“Sound health and a normal life I cannot have while on this platform. Therefore I accept the fact and do not fret about it. … Facing the end of one’s earthly pilgrimage is not a melancholy thing for a Christian. It is like preparation for the most exciting journey of all. … And so the platform of a dreaded disease becomes but a springboard for heaven” (Kuhn, Ibid., pp. 232-252).
Her “dreaded disease” became a “springboard for heaven” on March 20th, 1957. I used to pray that I would simply grow old and die peacefully in my sleep. That could happen but I also accept the fact that I don’t know what God will use to “springboard” me into heaven … a car accident, some major health issue, a jealous husband … just kidding. But here’s the plain truth … we will all get sick at some point … we may be healed, we may not be healed … we may not know how long we’ll be sick or how long we will be in this world … and that’s okay because, as Isobel Kuhn so wisely observed, this life is but a preparation for the most exciting journey of all.
Disease is just a part of life … this life … but it is not part of the life that we will experience after this one. “If this life were all we had,” says Dr. Jeremiah, “then cancer and every other life-threatening illness would truly be tragic” (Jeremiah, Ibid., p. 56) but we have the promise of an empty tomb. Death has been defeated. Our resurrected bodies will be eternal … we will never get sick or die again … amen! Christ will “transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body” (Philippines 3:21). No more tears. No more death. No more sorrow. No more pain. No more sickness. No more diseases. No more suffering … for the former things will have passed away (Revelation 21:4).
A Puritan preacher once wrote: “Sickness, when sanctified, teaches us four things: the vanity of the world, the vileness of sin, the helplessness of man, and the preciousness of Christ” (Author unknown, quoted in Thomas, C. Practical Wisdom for Pastors. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books; 2001; p. 102). While we are here, in these bodies that are wonderfully and fearfully made, we must also remember that we have a Great Physician who raised His own Son from the dead, leaving behind the promise of an empty tomb in our future. “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O Death is your victory? Where, O Death is your sting?” (1st Corinthians 15:54-55). That spiritual truth will help us get through the darkest days that any disease can inflict upon us, amen?
