When We Are At The End of Our Rope

“For in thee, O LORD, do I hope: thou wilt hear, O Lord my God…Forsake me not, O LORD: O my God, be not far from me. Make haste to help me, O Lord my salvation.” (Ps 38:15, 21-22 AV)

Every once in a while, one is pushed to pray a prayer like this.  I am preaching through Daniel on Wednesday nights.  We are bogged down in chapter two.  Daniel exercises desperate faith.  He is put into a position, not of his own making.  He has nothing to lose.  Trusting God or not trusting God has the same potential outcome.  Unless, that is, the LORD does answer.  Then his faith was well worth it.  This is where we find ourselves.  From time to time we are at the mercy of life’s events.  We did not cause them.  We are not responsible for them.  There is nothing we can do about it.  We have no other option but to trust the LORD.  We know only the LORD can do something about our situation.  It is too big for us.  We cannot control any aspect of what we are going through.  We are at our wit’s end and there is nothing left to do but to trust the LORD.

This is not an easy place to find oneself.  To say times like this are uncomfortable is an understatement.  These times are as close to impossible as one can get.  It is often in the midst of these times we think the end is near.  Often, we recede into our shells and do not want to come out.  We see every day as a dark day.  The sun never shines and we think it never will.  It is the words of the psalmist above that ring hope in the desperate heart.  The downtrodden soul must look up and not down.  He or she must believe there is a God who cares.  He or she must believe there is a God who will answer the prayer of the desperate.  Perhaps not as we would wish, but He will.  David’s words are not without credibility.  He faced some dark days during his earthly pilgrimage.  He faced down giants.  He ran from his family.  For the majority of his life, his enemies wanted him destroyed.  He buried four children.  When David laid his head down and breathed his last breath, he had just watched one of his sons execute another.  David knew the way of sorrow.  He knew what it was like to live a life of desperation.

So, what did he do?  He declared emphatically his hope in God.  His faith may have waivered, but it never failed.  To that end, we can be encouraged.  Just because our faith is challenged and it seems like it will not hold up, does not mean we are failures.  In fact, it means just the opposite.  It means we yielded to the extreme pressures of life without completely giving up on God.  In doing so, we yielded to the ministry of the Holy Spirit in strengthening our faith when we thought it would completely fail.  David here gives us the way out.  Declare your faith in God then assault the throne of grace that You might be able to obtain grace to help in time of need.