Good Morning, Blogging Family! This video is inspired by a chapter from Hello, God that looks at one of my favorite psalms, 138, and shares how God has used that passage over the years to strengthen me when I felt like I couldn’t make it through another day. Stay tuned for an excerpt from Lord’s Prayer tomorrow!

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“During the years that I battled uncontrolled seizures, I also developed intractable migraines. Doctors hypothesized that each seizure would trigger a migraine as an after-effect. Since I rarely went a day without a seizure, I always had a migraine. Once it became clear that these conditions were linked and there was unlikely to be a pharmaceutical solution to either, my access to pain medication was restricted and I was told to endure the migraines naturally…

…God continued sending psalms to my rescue. David, with his deep brokenness and reckless dependence on God’s grace, has a signature tendency to offer God raw praise in the midst of unimaginable pain. (Try being accused of insanity [Psalm 34], or being hunted down by your own son [Psalm 3]!) For me, these raw praises were the most contagious because they gave me permission to flip-flop between praising God in one breath and crying out to Him from the depths of my soul in the next. 

Psalm 138 is a classic flip-flopping psalm. David opens with a raucous chorus, rejoicing in God’s faithfulness both to him personally (v. 3) and to the righteous in general (vv. 5-6). It’s easy to imagine him leading worship in the sanctuary, hands raised high in adoration. 

But, then, we hit verses 7-8 and discover that’s not the psalm’s setting at all. David’s not leading worship. He describes himself as “[walking] in the midst of troubles,” surrounded by angry enemies. How was he just able to write such a flattering portrayal of God only a few verses before? 

David can still praise God because he doesn’t believe God will leave him where he is. He takes hold of those characteristics that he mentioned at the beginning, characteristics God has demonstrated throughout his life and Israel’s history, characteristics such as faithfulness and lovingkindness.  He preaches those traits to himself.  If God is who David has known Him to be, and is eternal and unchanging, then David can trust that deliverance is on the way:

“Though I walk in the midst of trouble,
    you preserve my life;
you stretch out your hand against the wrath of my enemies,
    and your right hand delivers me.
The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me;
    your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever.”

            Psalm 138 reminded me of two truths on those mornings when I didn’t think I had it in me to make it through the next hour, much less the rest of the day:

 1) God, not I, would fulfill His plan for me that day. David could have put the unrealistic pressure on himself that he must somehow make sense of his trial and discover some higher purpose. But he doesn’t do that. He humbly admits that whatever spiritual growth or transformation is going to take place will be completely the Lord’s doing. 

2) Nothing I did or did not do that day could change God’s heart toward me. It’s tempting to think we can earn or lose brownie points in God’s Book of Suffering by how well we manage our pain, tend to our responsibilities, marshal what meager resources we have left, etc. But that only adds distress and sells the lie that our right standing with God depends on something other than Christ’s work on the cross. Remember there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus! (Romans 8:1) Jesus has already lived the perfect life on our behalf and we can be completely at rest, dressed in His gorgeous, blood-bought robes of righteousness…”

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