11-19-2024

Good Morning All,

       Psalm 69: 1-3; “Save me, O God!  For the waters have come up to my neck.  I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me.  I am weary with my crying out; my throat is parched.  My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.”

     We have all been there.  We have known people who have been there.  We may even know people who are there now; maybe you are there right now.  That feeling like everything is completely out of control.  A little whole ago, everything made sense but now it doesn’t.  It could be the job that was and now isn’t.  It could be the doctor’s visit where you hear, “we’ve found something.”  It might be a call from the fire department telling you that you have fifteen minutes to get out before your home is destroyed.  It might have been when you found out that your spouse or parent or child just died. 

     At times like that we know what David wrote about in this Psalm.  We are in water up to our neck, with no good foothold, about to go way under and we have cried so long and so loud that our throat hurts and our eyes hurt from crying.  The pain we feel is incredible and our sense of control is completely gone.  At times like that, where do we turn, where do you go?

     Many different people turn in many different directions.  Some turn to drugs or alcohol; some turn to other destructive actions; some just turn inward and age more quickly than before and withdraw from all those around them. But god gives us another choice.  He tells us to call on him.  That is what David does here,” Save me, O God!”  Peter did it when he was sinking when he called, “Lord save me!”  God has promised to rescue us from the pit.  He has promised to pull us up from the mire and out of the depths of our despair.

     The hard part is that when God tells us that he will pull us out of that pit; it means that there will be times when we are in that pit.  When we are there, we need to trust that God will save us.  When we feel the most lost, God is there to comfort us.  When we feel the most hopeless, God is there to offer us hope.  He comes to us with his Spirit of comfort and with his consolation.  We need to have faith.  The kind of faith that truly desires the gift from God.  The kind of faith that embraces God as he embraces us.  The faith that gives us comfort knowing that God is with us, for us, loving us, saving us.  We will face tribulation; that is an unfortunate fact of sin.  But we face it knowing that God’s love is there for us.  We will experience the pain, but God’s promise remains with us.  We may mourn but we mourn as a people with hope.  We hold onto the hope from God.  We embrace God’s promise as he brings us through the storms of life.

Dear Father, when our hearts break, when we sink to the depths, you reach out and save us from our pain and sorrow.  Be with us, especially those of us who are experiencing this sense of drowning and loss of control.  Send your Spirit of comfort.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret