(vs81-82) "My soul faints for your salvation, but I hope in your word. My eyes fail from searching your word, saying, 'When will you comfort me?"
I am desperate and in need (vs81-82). He says, “When will You comfort me?” This is normal Christianity. We often need and don’t possess, we desire and must wait patiently, and we call up the Lord in hope. We don’t only pray to God, as if we’re satisfied in our requesting, but we need an answer! I need the good that He alone can do for me, and this DESPERATION is how we get things from Christ. He helps the desperate, the poor in spirit, and the ones who can’t help themselves or be helped any other way (Is 66:1-2).
Secondly, we say, "When?" (vs83-84). “When will You execute judgment on those who persecute me?” I’m still here, Oh God, needing what I’m requesting, so that I can function. I can’t walk in unbelief and unforgiveness; I need to know my reconciliation and the power that you give. Recently, while pondering my fears and doubts, I was driven to me knees, buried myself in the word of God, and received an answer from 1 Pet 3:21, how baptism saves us, “not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ”! And, there it is! I have a clean conscience and peace with God, NOT because of how I’ve been doing, but entirely because of Jesus Christ, rising from the dead, having satisfied God’s judgment against all that He determined to save. I am safe, not because of me, but because of God’s Son, and therefore, reconciliation is real. I have sins in my past and problems in my future, but I have God on my side, for me, rather than against. I got this through prayer, through asking over and over, until He gave me an answer in the scripture.
Prayer is not positive thinking! It receives supernatural power (Rom 15:13).
Finally, this desperation is not going away until I’m helped, so I will pray again (vs85-88). He says, “All Your commandments are faithful; they persecute me wrongfully; Help me! They almost made an end of me on earth, but I did not forsake Your precepts. Revive me according to Your lovingkindness, so that I may keep the testimony of Your mouth”. We can’t obey without grace, nor can we glorify a God who’s glory we cannot see. Paul sought the Lord three times, until he received an answer, that His grace is sufficient, and this is what I need (2 Cor 12:8-9). I don’t need the problem solved, as far as the persecutor to change, etc, but I assuredly need power to endure it, to honor God with my chin up, and this, only You can give.
God’s grace isn’t immediate always; it may take time to pray, wait, and then receive (Luke 11:9-13). But, knowing grace is SURE, we pray, we wait, and then we pray again. We don’t throw up our hands in unbelief saying, “It is no use”. We have no other option, so we continually knock, knowing that He promises to answer, even if He ignores us initially and for a long time.
There was a woman the Lord compared to a dog, and she said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their master’s table”, and she got what she needed (Matt 15:21-28). There were two blind men who followed Jesus crying out, “Son of David, have mercy on us”, but eventually, He stopped and said, “According to your faith, let it be to you”, so that God’s ignoring of us doesn’t mean that He DOESN’T hear (Matt 9:27-30). He will respond graciously.
Don’t be discouraged. Don’t quit or be defeated. Ask, seek, and knock. It will be opened to you.
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