Psalms that have impacted my life Psalm 116  Part 2

As we continue with the Psalmist’s distress and cry to God for help we read in Verse 3 “The pains of death encompass me, and the pangs of Sheol laid hold of me; I found trouble and sorrow “. In Old Testament times Sheol was the abode of the dead, however, this is not true today because Jesus conquered death and the grave when He rose again on the third day after dying on the cross. Jesus said to the dying thief on the cross “Today you shall be with me in Paradise “ (Luke 23:43). It is so interesting to hear the honesty of the Psalmist, while we do not know exactly why and how he was suffering, in his talk with his God he was very open to his situation and did not hold back when talking to his God. There have been times when I was not completely truthful when I was talking to God about what I was going through. I thought that if I did not tell God how I felt I could survive by hiding it from God, The silly thing about this type of deception I am only deceiving myself. The situation the Psalmist was experiencing was very severe, he could almost sense what it was like to be dead. He could not a way around his problem for he said “I found trouble and sorrow “. It is important to note that he did not stay overwhelmed by his thoughts because he said in Verse 4 “Then I called upon the name of the lord; ‘O Lord, I implore you, deliver my soul !’” NLT “Please Lord save me!” It is so good to forcefully declare that the Lord is the only answer to what you are going through. James 5:16b says: “The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much “. It does not matter how severe the situation we are experiencing, the only answer is coming and confessing our situation to the Lord because when we know that He has the answer to our problem. However, there is a danger that we can try and fix the situation in our strength while that may happen it affects our relationship with the Lord, and then I become distant from Him. It takes time to repent of trusting in our strength and change and rebuild our close relationship with the Lord again. The psalmist was very aggressive in his calling out to his God. “O Lord, I implore you, deliver my soul”   He was very clear he believed that his Lord would save him. Verse 5 says: “Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; yes our God is merciful”. It is so comforting when we acknowledge the true nature of our God because His nature never changes and this is why we can put our confidence in Him. One thing we know is that despite the severe trial he was experiencing he came out victorious. This is where we start when our trust is in the Lord because the Lord is gracious and righteous we have nothing to fear. Because our Saviour is so trustworthy we have nothing to fear because He has conquered everything so we can live a victorious life.