Crying Out for Help from Psalm 119
Suffering might be the most common experience of the human condition.
It is common because every person is a sinner who sins against others (inflicting suffering on them) and who is the recipient of the sins of others (receiving suffering from them). And everyone lives in this fallen world in which things break and fail.
There is no escaping suffering, difficulty, and death. Even those who are most righteous suffer.
As you read the words of the unnamed psalmist in Psalm 119, it might be tempting to think that he is so overjoyed with God and His Word because his life is free of trouble. It is not.
At least twenty-one times, the psalmist refers to some kind of suffering. Consider:
Princes sit and talk against me (v. 23).
The arrogant utterly deride me (v. 51).
The cords of the wicked have encircled me (v. 61).
The arrogant … subvert me with a lie (v. 78).
They almost destroyed me on earth (v. 87).
The wicked wait for me to destroy me (v. 95).
My adversaries have forgotten Your words (v. 139).
Trouble and anguish have come upon me (v. 143).
Many are my persecutors and my adversaries (v. 157).
Princes persecute me without cause (v. 161).
The exact nature of his problems is unknown, but he faced things that are common to man: the results of gossip, slander, anger, hostility, and oppression. You can hear the sorrow and pain in his words. But you do not find anger, resentment, or bitterness in his words. He not only accepts his difficulties, but he is grateful for them because of what his trouble has done for him. He says,
Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word (v. 67).
It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I may learn Your statutes (v. 71).
The psalmist learned in affliction to be obedient to and follow the counsel of God in ways that he did not do and would not have done without his trials.
Even more, in his suffering, he learned to turn to God for help. He reached the end of his “self-sufficiency” and learned the lesson of God-dependence:
All Your commandments are faithful; they have persecuted me with a lie; help me! (v. 86).
Redeem me from the oppression of man, that I may keep Your precepts (v. 134).
I cried to You; save me and I shall keep Your testimonies (v. 146).
Look upon my affliction and rescue me, for I do not forget Your law (v. 153).
Plead my cause and redeem me; revive me according to Your word (v. 154).
Let my cry come before You, O Lord; give me understanding according to Your word (v. 169).
Let my supplication come before You; deliver me according to Your word (v. 170).
When in pain, the psalmist turned to God for help. In fact, the request in verse 170 is picturesque. The request, “Deliver me,” is a petition to “pull me out of my imperiling situation.” It suggests a man in a pit or in a swamp who cannot extricate himself but needs the assistance of someone outside or above who can reach down and draw him out of his situation.
This appeal addresses the power of God—He can pull anyone out of any trial. And it addresses the grace of God—He loves to assist and care for His people. Sometimes His assistance is to remove the problem, sometimes it is to sustain us through the problem, and sometimes it is to take us home through the problem. And in all those provisions, we experience His power and kind love.
Everyone is a sufferer. Including you. Including me. We need help.
We have a God who has revealed Himself to us in His Word—and that revelation tells us that when we suffer it is good, and He is more than adequate to care for us.
This article first appeared on Words of Grace.