Psalm 13:1-6 1How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? 2How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? 3Look on me and answer, LORD my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death, 4and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,” and my foes will rejoice when I fall. 5But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. 6I will sing the LORD’s praise, for he has been good to me.
The Harder, I try, the more it seems that success escapes me…..
…………….Lately, my life goes like this-. When I try to save money, a new bill arrives, and then in a blink of an eye, my savings have vanished. When I try something new, it ends up costing me more money than I budgeted. Psalm 13 articulate the absolute cry of my heart. I buy new desktop programs to help with my work efficiency, which is supposed to save me time and money but ended up costing me more time and more money than I expected. I tried to fix a relationship only to find that I made the whole situation worse. I am trying to stay positive as possible, then suddenly plummeted down to the depths of despair. Everything single thing that I put my hand to has gone very wrong! It appears life is full of two steps forward and five back.
Where is God in my situation? My thoughts are so unruly they mess with my brain!
Can you relate?
As a Christian, as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, how should I approach this issue? God has abandoned his promises to help me. Do my prayers fall into the ground unheard? Are God’s promises false and empty, or is it something else?
My days are full of despair, and there are no answers to my cries.
I try to make sense of the situation and even perhaps trying to lay blame somewhere. But is this the struggle of life I have to go through to survive? Is my expectation of life unreasonable? Have I a narrow view to what is going on, failing to see the full picture? Why does it seem that the wicked prosper, and the more honest I am, the more it costs me? Is God allowing this for some higher reason?
Although no direct answers come to me, the only thing I can think of at these times is that following Jesus isn’t about having an easy time of it. After all, I volunteered to follow Jesus who told me to take up my cross- that’s not a walk in the park but sounds like hardship 101 to me! If life worked out according to my prayers, how that would build my character, maybe I might end up as spiritual spoilt brat. I guess that if I must relate to real life, to help others through real life, in all its despair. Maybe I ought to experience the same in real-time so that I may help others in real-time. What do you think?
For 30 years plus of being a follower of Jesus Christ, I have met tons of people. Looking back, people with spiritual pride look down their nose on those people you fail because they have forgotten their struggles, or even deny them. They reveal their current success, and somehow it slipped their memory exactly how they got where they are.
For me, I cry out “Lord I desire to do your will more than anything else in the whole world, but the more I do, the more disastrous my life seems to be”. I wonder, how am I going to crawl or jump out of this hole?
I have concluded that I have two choices.
1) I can walk away from God and go hey I’m going to do this thing on my own because it doesn’t work with you anyway.
2) Or, I can take a leaf out of Job book 13:15– and profess-
‘Though he slays me, yet will I hope in him; I will indeed defend my ways to his face.’
I’m old enough in the Lord now well over 30 years since I gave my heart life to Christ to know full well that we only really have spiritually, what we can hold under pressure. The pressures of life reveal who I really am, how I think and what I really do believe, and my actions will show that. I could distance myself from God and the reality of my situation and the gravity of its consequences, or I trust God’s in it all anyway.
When I trust God, and of course, not knowing or understanding what’s really happening, it is then I realise my potential for walking in faith. Walking in faith is all about putting your hand in the hands of God grace and mercy, allowing him to lead even when you cannot see the way forward. Because faith would not be faith otherwise and if you had it all figured out, why would you need your Good Shepherd to lead you? It would not be walking in faith if you can see the end result. It would not be walking in faith if every single time you prayed for something, and it worked out. I guess that God is not a slot machine prayer-answering person- prayer in- answer out immediately.
The apostle Paul said that when I am weak, that is when I am truly strong. It doesn’t make much sense to our natural selves, but it makes a heap sense to our spiritual selves.
So, what to do now?
Regardless of my devastating circumstance, my losses, and my griefs, I need to choose to stand on God promises anyway. Even though my heart is sad, my mind confused and downcast, I need to rejoice in the Lord always – anyway. Although the heavens may seem as brass, my prayers don’t seem to be going anywhere at all; I need to choose then to pray without ceasing – anyway.
Father God encourages us to articulate how we really feel and not pretend. Putting questions to God is great. Then at some point, we must come to – “may your will be done in my life as it is already designed to be so in heaven”. So, my mantra should now be – “I surrender my life to you Lord, so Lord show me the path that you would have designed, and I will navigate all its rocks and bumps, its dangers. Lord lead me to the rock that is higher than I, so I may I glory is not in myself, not in my circumstances, but may I glory and glory alone and the Lord Jesus, who is my Lord, my Saviour, and soon coming King.”
Now I have come to the end of this blog article which I wrote with many tears, and I realise how much I miss writing. Although I do short articles like this, I miss the challenge of creating a book writing it up. I have written two books and published them in 6 months of 2021. The beginning of the process was mind-bending; however, in the end, I looked forward to my daily session of writing. For 2021 I planned not to write another till June, and now I have just realised I was wrong. I am sure I lost my peace because of this decision. I have just decided to write two books in 2021 by starting right now, at this moment. I saved this unfinished article, took a break from writing this article for a day. I began to plan book 3 and guess what! EVERYTHING CHANGED. The clouds outside do not look too gloomy now, even the cold winter air feels warmer, I have more energy, and my mind has cleared. Thank you, Lord, for lifting the gloom!
I wonder what decisions do you need to make?
At the end of Psalm 13 verse 6 gives us a clue to what to do– I will sing the LORD’s praise, for he has been good to me. So, lament, as in the first few verses then we Praise !
Then ask yourself- What actions do you need to take? Put it on your Godly plan and find a way forward into God peace of mind, heart, and soul.
John 14:27
‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.‘
And please remember to live in Hope Faith and Love and
Live Life on Purpose!
Rev Paula
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Hope. Faith. Love. 