Articles
Then I Called Upon The Lord
“I love the Lord, because He hears my voice and my supplications. Because He has inclined His ear to me, therefore I shall call upon Him as long as I live. The cords of death encompassed me, and the terrors of Sheol came upon me; I found distress and sorrow. Then I called upon the name of the Lord: ‘O Lord, I beseech Thee, save my life!’
This is the introduction to Psalm 116, an incredible prayer about the power of trusting in God in our deepest and darkest hour.
We are told in Romans 8:26 that the Holy Spirit intercedes on our behalf when we have thoughts and feelings that are too deep for words. While human communication fails us often in the expression of our prayers to God, it seems that Psalm 116 is about as powerful as it gets. It is in the words of such psalms that the deepest, most meaningful desires are described. In the psalms we have the purest articulation of everything that we would otherwise deem ineffable. It is possible, at least according to tradition, that this poem was written by Hezekiah, after his near-mortal illness described in 2 Kings 20 and Isaiah 37-38. His absolute confidence in God’s ability to deliver is likely from the instance prior to his illness, in which God heard his prayers and delivered Judah from Sennacharib, King of Assyria, in 2 Kings 19. The practical application arises when we put ourselves in the place of the writer and consider all of the times in our own lives when the power of prayer and unwavering faith resulted in our deliverance. Here some thoughts:
How confident are you that a prayer will be answered in the right way at the appropriate time? The writer of Psalm 116 certainly maintains an unwavering faith?
It is very difficult for us, admittedly, to fully understand the situations that men like David, Hezekiah, or Job went through because we never experience the same threat of death. How often have you had an invading army in your front yard? How many times have you fled into the wilderness because of a rebellion? When was the last time you found yourself in a deep pit because of enemies to the truth?
The lesson is simple: If God could deliver His beloved ones from such drastic and terrible situations, then how hard is it for Him to help you get through tax season, endure the death of an aged family member of natural causes, or comfort you when you are feeling kind of blue?
