To Encourage You

Psalm 61:1-2 “Hear my cry, O God, listen to my prayer; from the end of the earth I call to you when my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”

Have you ever been overwhelmed?  It’s a feeling of not having enough to face the circumstances of life.  It’s a feeling that there is not enough strength, not enough money, not enough knowledge, or not enough help to face the day.  It can be the feeling of being too weak, too sinful, too sick, or too ignorant.  Have you ever been there?  Are you there now? 

So what do we do in such cases? For those who know God, how can this even be the case?  Yet, in the verses above, we see those sentiments expressed by David, a man after God’s own heart. We aren’t told the circumstances of David’s despair, nevertheless, we know that David was in that mindset.  So, what does he do? What should we do? 

Well, first, David cries out to God. He is honest with God.  He tells him exactly how he feels. He doesn’t try to hide it. He pleads with God to listen to him, for he has a feeling that he’s at the end of the earth – about as far away from God as he can be.  He tells God that his heart is faint – overwhelmed.  But then he asks God to lead him to “the rock that is higher than I.”  He acknowledges that in all his own insufficiency there exists something – no someone, that is higher than him. David acknowledges that although he is in a situation in which he does not have enough in and of himself, there is another that has more than enough.  He reaches out to the rock of his salvation Who has more than enough of everything there is – Who has more than enough of the very things he lacked, and it’s for that reason that he can have hope.  He looks to a Savior that is higher, more powerful, and more able to meet any need than the lack he now felt regarding that need.

Our God is infinitely holy, infinitely good, infinitely worthy, infinitely able to supply every need.  And He’s a God Who has promised to meet those needs – not because we are sufficient, but because He is. He’s a God of Whom we can say, “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).  That means what it says, i.e., every need in every situation, including every overwhelming situation, come what may.  

In the New Testament we have another person that felt this same way.  It was the mighty apostle Paul. And he tells us this about it: “We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead“(1 Corinthians 1:8-9). In other words, Paul, too, learned to reach out for a rock that was higher than he.  He couldn’t rely on himself, for in his own strength, he was insufficient. He didn’t have enough. But this all happened to him so that he would learn to rely on the God Who can do anything, including raise the dead! 

Overwhelmed? Admit it?  Insufficient? Cry out to God. We must acknowledge that we need Him, for we obviously do!  May our God lead us to Himself, that rock that, thankfully,  every one of us can say “is higher than I!”