Fight of Faith

When you find yourself in a situation that is overwhelming, and you think you are not going to "make it", whatever that may look like for you. Those types of days where all the strength in you is completely zapped out of you, and you feel like it's all you can do just to keep going. Those days of failure, when doubt overruns your mind, when your worry begins to choke out the word of God...those types of days...when the option of quitting seems to make more sense than continuing on.


Psalm 42
1 As the deer pants for the water brooks,
So my soul pants for You, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God;
When shall I come and appear before God?
3 My tears have been my food day and night,
While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember and I pour out my soul within me.
For I used to go along with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God,
With the voice of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.

5 Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why have you become disturbed within me?
Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him
For the help of His presence.
6 O my God, my soul is in despair within me;
Therefore I remember You from the land of the Jordan
And the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls;
All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me.
8 The LORD will command His lovingkindness in the daytime;
And His song will be with me in the night,
A prayer to the God of my life.

9 I will say to God my rock, “Why have You forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”
10 As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries revile me,
While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
11 Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why have you become disturbed within me?
Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him,
The help of my countenance and my God.



So, when our story matches up with David's as in Psalm 42 what is the answer for us? When it seems that God has left the scene, failure overruns, our soul is in despair, the enemy is overrunning, our bones are shattered, and we feel that God has forgotten or not heard our cry's. What do we do with this? How do we handle this? Can our gospel lead us out of this? Will we ever be restored again? Is redemption possible? Tragic questions, but these are often ones that cross the mind of a child of God when times of trouble come our way.

Look at the last two lines, "Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God." Hope in God...praise Him...help of my countenance...my God. Our answer in the time of trouble is to praise God! Notice what David has to say, "the help..." Beyond feeling, and our circumstance there is one truth that will always remain, God is real! In other Psalms David would say that God is the portion of his life. We need an understanding that God is real no matter what is happening in our lives, and when we start believing that God is not there our answer is worship. It is the times when we are struggling to believe God that He wants to come in and make Himself more real than we know Him to be. We should consider God being merciful to us when we are struggling. It is in those times when our relationship has the potential to deepen with God.

Our answer is worshiping the living God, the Alpha and Omega, the One who created the Heavens and earth, the One who rose from the dead, and the One who will "free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives (Heb 2:15)." May it be possible that in our deepest struggle God is trying to bring us freedom from sin and death? Our answer is to worship, and to keep on worshiping! God is real!



Psalm 34
1 I will bless the LORD at all times;
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
2 My soul will make its boast in the LORD;
The humble will hear it and rejoice.
3 O magnify the LORD with me,
And let us exalt His name together.

4 I sought the LORD, and He answered me,
And delivered me from all my fears.
5 They looked to Him and were radiant,
And their faces will never be ashamed.
6 This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him
And saved him out of all his troubles.
7 The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear Him,
And rescues them.

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