Psalm 88

We need God to hear us today. The battle within our souls is intense, and we cannot win that fight in our own strength. The Lord is the God of our salvation. He will hear us and help us.

Are you and I even aware of the enemies that come against us?

The spirit of the age is knocking on our door all the time. He insists on entry into the temple of your soul. Will you yield to his lies, or cling to the Christ, who called you to be filled with a different spirit?

That popular spirit, embraced by so many people that it defines an era, is just one of the enemies of your soul. You also have a battle with your flesh that would defeat you with unworthy eager desires. Then there is the sin that so easily besets you, fueled by habits of the heart that you have been unwilling to more fully confront. All around is the hopeless life, the joyless life, the loveless life that insists that you accept the lowest spiritual attainments as all you are every going to possess.

God, the living God, stands against all these. Won't you call out to Him to defeat this array of lying spirits?

On top of this massive soul struggle, you may face formidable troubles in your body. Pain, weakness, and disease have made their mark on your body, the temple of the Holy Spirit. Will you give in to bitterness and despair, or will you put on the whole armor of God, and embrace the Lord who faced suffering for your sake? He has prepared a place for you in the heavens, that where He is, you may also be. He will hear you when you talk to Him.

Despair is stealing from you right in front of your face. Sin and the wrath of God claim to be unsatisfied, pointing to supposed evidence that God is unwilling to bless you. Fear of the unknown insists that he is your oldest friend and that you will never be able to throw him out of your life. But you can remember the cross of Christ again even now. You can fight the good fight of faith. You can point to the death of your Savior as evidence that sin can no longer have dominion over you, and that the wrath of the Almighty has been satisfied through the sacrifice of the Lord on your behalf. You can hear and believe the promises of God. You can banish fear through the love of God and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

But then loneliness in this godly path of thought and life pays a visit. You feel all alone in the way of faith. You have been hurt by people in the past, and you would rather just be alone. Where are the ones who used to be beside you? Sickness, weariness, and despair have insisted on isolation. Your house feels like a cell, but you are not sure that you have the strength or desire to leave it.

The sovereignty of God does not comfort you. Instead you wonder, “Why have you done this to me, O Lord? Why is my life a mess? Why am I so weak? Why won't you save me?” You think, “I have prayed and prayed and prayed. I have cried and cried and cried.” But you call out to God again. “Lord, can this body do anything for You when I am in the grave? Am I just going to die? Is there nothing more left for me? Is that Your plan for me, O God?”

Morning comes, and you talk to God again. But soon the same enemies are all around you. No sense of God's presence, no real memory of life without disaster, terrors of the present and fears of the future, no sense of any help from God, only His wrath, only His assaults against you that will be your destruction, loneliness and distance from the ones you love, and darkness all around you...

And that is where this psalm ends.

Can you relate to that? Then this psalm is God's special gift for you. Others may not be able to understand, but the Lord has granted to you in a very personal way the privilege of comprehending at least a portion of what our Savior felt as He continued faithful to the very end.

Your life is not easy. He understands that as someone who experienced a life of trouble ending with a horrible death.

Remember the power of His cross. Keep on crying out to God. Commit your Spirit to Him. Believe again in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And in just a little while, you will be home with the one Person who knows what you are going through more than anyone else in this world.