GOD, I'M SUFFERING IN TORMENT IN MY SINFUL WORLD (vv. 1-3) Notice –> he doesn't deny needing rebuke or discipline. Be merciful to me! I'm faint! my bones are in agony...my soul is in anguish The best thing a depressed person can pray: heal me, O LORD. How long, O Lord, How long! John Calvin bones in agony & soul in anguish GOD, I NEED YOUR PRESENCE, LOVE, & POWER (vv. 4-5) Turn, O Lord, and deliver me… Return, O Lord... Return...deliver...save hesed (unfailing love) concept of remembering He's urgently appealing to G for deliverance so that: 1. God would be glorified 2. Fellow believers would be strengthened Lamentations 3.23: "Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For He does not willingly bring affliction to the children of men." (emphasis mine) "He does not willingly – that is, he doesn't from the heart – bring affliction and grief. Suffering may be a part of God's larger and most mysterious plan, but God's intention is to demonstrate compassion and unfailing love that touches people at their deepest need." – Joni Erickson Tada, A Place of Healing: Wrestling with Suffering, Pain, and God's Sovereignty (61), emphasis mine EVIDENCES OF MY AGONY (v. 6-7) SALVATION FROM MY AGONIZING SUFFERING (vv. 8-10) the Lord has heard my weeping. away from me cf. Return! (v. 4) with v. 10 (they will turn back) "By the adverb suddenly, he signifies, that when there is apparently no means of delivering the faithful from affliction, and when all seems desperate or hopeless, then they are delivered by the power of God contrary to all expectation." – John Calvin “There stood Peter and Edmund and all the rest of Aslan’s army fighting desperately against the crowd of horrible creatures whom she had seen last night; only now, in the daylight, they looked even stranger and more evil and more deformed. There also seem to be far more of them. Aslan’s army – which had their backs to her – looked terribly few. And there were statues dotted all over the battlefield, so apparently the Witch had been using her wand. But she did not sem to be using it now. She was fight with her stone knife. It was Peter she was fighting – both of them going at it so hard that Lucy could hardly make out what was happening; she only saw the stone knife and Peter’s sword flashing so quickly that they looked like three knives and three swords. That pair were in the centre. On each side the line stretched out. Horrible things were happening wherever she looked. ‘Off my back children,’ shouted Aslan. And they both tumbled off. Then with a roar that shook Narnia from the Western lamppost to the shores of the Eastern sea the great beast flung himself upon the White Witch. Lucy saw her face lifted towards him for one second with an expression of terror and amazement.” – C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe (173-74) In the first 4 vv. David cries out to the LORD 5x… …for it’s in the crying out to Him that we’re delivered from the chains of our sin & circumstances! …it's as we seek & beg in our desperation that we often receive our answers! File this Psalm away for the following reasons… 1. Let it give you compassion for Christians who suffer. 2. Keep this psalm handy to minister to others.