The cry for mercy

 This week's verses are Psalm 39:7-13:

But now, O Lord, upon what am I relying?
You are my only hope!
Deliver me from all my sins of rebellion.
Do not make me the object of fools’ insults.
I am silent and cannot open my mouth
because of what you have done.
Please stop wounding me.
You have almost beaten me to death.
You severely discipline people for their sins;
like a moth you slowly devour their strength.
Surely all people are a mere vapor. (Selah)

Hear my prayer, O Lord.
Listen to my cry for help.
Do not ignore my sobbing.
For I am a resident foreigner with you,
a temporary settler, just as all my ancestors were.
Turn your angry gaze away from me, so I can be happy
before I pass away.

 This is a continuation of the Psalm from last week. The Psalmist is having a bad day and is still gushing heartfelt negativity in his prayer to God. But this time he is trying to reconcile himself and make peace.

He starts off by admitting his helplessness and single-mindedness. He asks God to deliver him from his sins of rebellion. In other words, if he is relying on something other than God that he doesn't know about, he wants help getting rid of it. He wants to set things right before things get worse.

Do we ever try to reconcile things with God when we're having trouble? Or do we just ask for what we want him to do for us? Maybe we have rebellion in our hearts, or idolatry, which is causing this bad situation to be worse for us. Maybe the situation could be partly the result of some of these issues. Or maybe they have nothing to do with your situation at all, but you just want to avoid having to fight a battle on two fronts. What better time to bring them before God than when you're desperately interested in change?

The next section is a bit shocking. The Psalmist basically tells God to quit abusing him! Have you ever prayed a "God quit ruining my life" prayer? Again, King David is being honest about his feelings and perceptions when talking this through with God. And we can look at it evidence that we can be honest with God and not feel like we need to put on a show in front of him.

He asks God not to ignore his sobbing. He wants help, but he also wants to be heard. He feels as though God is out to get him and just wants to get through to him and find peace so the punishment will end. Have you ever felt like God was out to get you? It seems preposterous to us now, but in a bad moment maybe we've felt like King David felt before. Again, it's good to see a "professional" suffering the same sorts of things that we do from time to time and having the freedom before God to be honest about it.

The thing about the resident foreigner is interesting. There was no international charter of human rights back in days when this was written. If you were a foreigner moving to another country, you had nobody to stand up for you. People could gang up on you in the same way that somebody might get jumped in a bad neighborhood, and there was nobody you could call to get justice. So, if you lived as a foreigner in a place, you had to rely on having a good relationship with them or all could be lost very quickly.

This is what David is trying to do. He admits that he is completely at the mercy of being in God's good graces, and that he is outnumbered and outgunned and out of his element. God is his only hope. He can't rely on anything else. There's only one place that mercy and peace can come from in his moment of turmoil.

So don't be bashful about asking for mercy when things get rough. If King David even found himself doing it, at very least you'll be in good company.