Friday, July 14, 2017

Psalm 42:4-5 - WRAP YOURSELF IN PRAYER by Susan R. Slade



Excerpt from A Life's Symphony of Joy by Susan R. Slade

Psalm 42:4–5

When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me:
for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God,
with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday.
Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me?
hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.

HOPE (Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language): Confidence in a future event; the highest degree of well-founded expectation of good; as a hope founded on God's gracious promises; a scriptural sense. A well founded scriptural hope is, in our religion, the source of ineffable happiness.

INEFFABLE (Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language): adjective [Latin ineffabilis; in and effabilis, from effor, to speak.] Unspeakable; unutterable; that cannot be expressed in words; usually in a good sense; as the ineffable joys of heaven; the ineffable glories of the Deity.

In Psalm 42, The psalmist reminds himself that he once had been the pied piper of the worshippers.  However, at that time, his soul was parched, anguished for the quenching power of the Lord’s presence.  His enemies constantly badgered and harassed him concerning God’s seeming lack of faithfulness to him.  They were in essence saying, “This best Friend of yours has abandoned you.”  The psalmist started to believe the taunting of the haters, and asked the Lord, “Why have You forgotten me?”  Then he asked himself, “Why are you behaving this way? Why are you drowning in a self-made pity party?”   He turned his focus off of himself and off of the problems and onto his solution—the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful God.

After graduation from ORU, I moved from the vibrancy of campus life into an apartment building designed for the elderly and physically or mentally challenged.  Many of my neighbors were severely mentally impaired and, if off their medications, could be frightening.  I was in self-imposed isolation due to fear.  I went through a really deep depression, to the point that I hardly spoke, except to talk to God in prayer, because I was so depressed and empty.   It lasted I don’t even know how many months.  I would pray, and I would cry.  Then I would pray and cry some more.  I would be frank with God in my heart because I reasoned that God knew anyway, so I might as well say what I was feeling and thinking because I couldn’t hide anything from a God who knows everything.  I was very forthcoming about my pain, emotional as well as physical.  The emotional even eclipsed the physical at that time.  I can’t even say when it began, because I was praying continuously and crying out to God, but gradually, in the fullness of God’s time, He was faithful to lift the cloud of depression.  I was able to experience the free exercise of joy once again.

When you are in a time of despair, don’t neglect to wrap yourself in prayer. At the appointed time, the Lord will lift your cares.

No comments: