#DailyDevotion Call Upon The LORD, Our Father, When Times Are Tough
Psalm 143 O LORD, listen to my prayer, hear my plea; You are faithful and righteous — answer me! 2Don’t bring Your servant into court because no one living is righteous before You. 3The enemy has pursued me, stamped my life to the ground, and made me live in dark places like those long dead. 4I am weak enough to give up and am numb inside. 5I remember the days of long ago, think of all You have done, and meditate on what Your hands have made. 6I spread out my hands to You, longing for You like thirsty ground.
When we come before the LORD, we need a basis upon which our conscience can stand before Him and present our request. In this psalm our basis is the character of the LORD that He is faithful and righteous. He is faithful to keep His promises, which He didn’t have to make us and He is righteous in that He keeps all His promises. We now come with clear and clean consciences to the Father in the name of Jesus and trust in His promises the Father will hear us when we use His name. All of God’s promises are yes in Christ Jesus.
In verse 2 we have a profound theological truth—no one living is righteous before the LORD in and of ourselves. We all bear the image of fallen Adam and are sinners. We are by nature sinful and unclean. If we stand in court before the LORD we can only stand in the righteousness of Christ Jesus.
This is most likely David praying this when Saul was after him. He felt trampled down upon, though he did nothing wrong. He had been chased into the wilderness and lived in caves, where the dead would be buried. He, at this time, feels totally depleted. He has nothing left to give. He’s not even comfortably numb. He is dead numb. Has life taken you down to this point? You are not alone. You can think of Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane where He falls on His face, His friend betraying Him into the hands of His enemies, facing a horrific suffering and death. Jesus knows what you are experiencing because He has already gone through it for you and now with you.
This is a good time, as David does here, to remember all the LORD our God has done and upon everything He has made. As we look upon creation we can see the power of God and the providence of the LORD in which all creation is marshalled to provide for us. As we look upon what He has done, how He has through history brought us our Savior, Jesus Christ to suffer and die for our sins. He provided a Ransom, a Redeemer, from sin, the fear of death and the power of the devil. Look at how He chose a man to make a nation out of to bring salvation. Look at how He provided for and then delivered them through and from the Egyptians. How He used the Israelites to conquer the sinful nations so the Promise Seed would have a line to be brought forth who would bless all the nations. How we provided the Greeks to provide a language for spreading the Gospel and the Romans for providing highways and safe seas for spreading it. We look at all He has done in history to bring the good news of Jesus Christ and His salvation to us, to just you. How marvelous and wonderful that is.
On this basis we join David, spreading out our hands to the LORD and thirsting for Him as a parched land does the spring rains. We open up our hands to the LORD to receive from every good and perfect gift from the Father of lights, trusting in His divine providence and special saving help in every trouble, trial and tribulation. We open our mouths and speak with our lips to beg for help, trusting in the LORD’s faithfulness and righteousness in Christ Jesus.
Heavenly Father, be with us in every trial and tribulation. Strengthen with faith by Your grace to believe You know our condition and will bring to us what we need for today. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.