Psalm 130

The depths of trouble don't have to be very deep before we begin to be overwhelmed. We need the Lord in all the challenges that we face in everyday life. Even very confident and well-balanced individuals with very full cupboards are told to ask the Lord for their daily bread.

Yet we often act as if we are the masters of the universe... until our journey takes a bad turn that we know we cannot handle. Then we are desperate that the Lord hear our cry to Him, and that He bring us mercy right away.

This cry to God in trouble is not offensive to Him, but our ignoring of the Lord under normal circumstances is. Nonetheless, God is great and good, and His love for His children is sure and secure. We can count on Him.

God is not looking to find fault with you today. He is building you up in faith, even when the pathway to Jerusalem takes a turn into a deep valley of despair. You could not begin to stand in His presence if He were determined to destroy you through trials. Christ died for your sins. Our Father is not changing His mind about you now. He forgives your iniquities forever based on the perfect sacrifice that Christ has offered for you: Himself.

Even in despair we can approach the Lord, not only with holy fear, but with boldness, because of what Jesus, the Lamb of God, has done for us. We can wait for the Lord through the most exhausting and debilitating stages of our various journeys. The end of the road will come, and that end is glorious.

We need a sure hope that is so big that it invades the moments of darkness we face now. We need hope that cannot disappoint us, because the love of God has filled our hearts. We need to believe that the Lord has bought us back from the most ugly sin imaginable, from the most pitiful weakness of body and soul, and from the deepest affliction that we could ever experience, both in this life and the next.

If the news of that full redemption reaches our hearts today, then the future glory of heaven becomes a present joy, and we can walk on, even in the depths of trouble. We are not alone. The Lord of glory is with us.