Psalm 6 - 2.26.26

SCRIPTURE: PSALM 6:1 - 10

1 Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath.

2 Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am faint; heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony.

3 My soul is in deep anguish. How long, Lord, how long?

4 Turn, Lord, and deliver me; save me because of your unfailing love.

5 Among the dead no one proclaims your name. Who praises you from the grave?

6 I am worn out from my groaning. All night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears.

7 My eyes grow weak with sorrow; they fail because of all my foes.

8 Away from me, all you who do evil, for the Lord has heard my weeping.

9 The Lord has heard my cry for mercy; the Lord accepts my prayer.

10 All my enemies will be overwhelmed with shame and anguish; they will turn back and suddenly be put to shame.

OBSERVATION

This psalm comes from a grieved heart of David. While I felt like I needed to add a light hearted and chipper revelation to this devotional, my heart has not been able to move away from how encouraging this psalm itself is because it beautifully encaptures the heart of God and the compassion of the son of man himself. As you read this psalm, I encourage you to read it from the perspective of understanding more the heart of God towards us, one eager to enter into every detail of the human experience and be our cornerstone in every emotion and challenge.

David is someone who understands the heart of God and understands it so well, He knows that what grieves his heart has a place in God’s courts. 

When David’s heart is stirred up with joy, He acknowledges this joy has a place in God’s courts through His writing of psalms of praise.

When his heart is stirred up with anguish, He acknowledges their place in God’s courts through His writing of lament and transparent anger. 

David knows God’s heart and knows that His deepest and truest thoughts belong there, all because he knows that God’s heart is invitational to these deep and complex areas of ourselves. He even says, The Lord hears my prayer AND accepts it.

I love to think about how Jesus went to the places God’s heart goes. Jesus acted in unison with God’s heart, being His only son and the divine revelation of God on earth, so He went where God’s heart would be compelled.

Throughout scripture we see Jesus, and well, God’s heart, enter into many different contexts. We see Jesus entering into areas of worldly suffering, into spaces of death, into spaces of grief, into times of joy, into atmospheres of celebration, into mundane moments, and into tense moments, just to name a few. 

The point is, Jesus entered where God’s heart wants to be. And in this psalm, we see that God’s heart is to be with David in the grief and complex anguish He is currently living in.

APPLICATION

There is a scary truth that frightens me a bit that we can live our whole lives as followers of Jesus without truly experiencing His fellowship in our grievances and our sufferings, all because we have not offered our truest experiences to Him, out of a lack of understanding they are what He desire.

As you read this Psalm, where David invites God into his suffering because David knows that is where God wants to go, I want you to see this as an invitation and an example on how to live a divinely intertwined life with Christ’s character and God’s heart.

This week, as emotions rise and if grievances surface, see them not as interruptions — but as invitations. Invitations for God to meet you there. Express the deepest and truest emotions to your heart through practices like honest journaling, the practice of intimate and true prayer, and in turn see God’s presence meet you there - showing you the mystery of Christ that He enters into suffering as a perfect and relational LOVE that nothing in this world and no one in this world can taint, but every single person desperately needs.

To live in full fellowship with Jesus Christ is to understand His heart: He enters into suffering with us. He enters into delight with us. He enters into every corner of the human experience with us.

He went first. He stepped into our humanity fully so that when we walk through valleys and stand on mountaintops, we would never walk alone. David acknowledges this through His true expression of anguish towards God in Psalm 6. David knew that it is His creator's delight to be in suffering with Him. He is the only thing that can enter into darkness and bring unchanging and unaltered light.

PRAYER

Jesus,  I am sorry for how I have hid the parts of my heart from you, not thinking you want to be there. Right now, I give you permission to enter into every space of my being that you know and want to be in - come into my existence and my human experience and show me your heart towards every area of my life. Every thought, every emotion, every experience is yours. Today I want to live in that truth and truly invite you into each deep and complex thing. Would you show me your love for every aspect of my heart and your desire to be with me in every experience? Thank you for moving in David’s heart in a way that shows me how you want to move in mine. I love you Jesus, thank you for deeply loving me first. Amen.

- Tess Shrupp