Take Our Stand

DEVOTION

PSALMS

TAKE OUR STAND

Ps 119:81-88

81 Kaph

My soul faints with longing for your salvation, but I have put my hope in your word. 82 My eyes fail, looking for your promise; I say, "When will you comfort me?" 83 Though I am like a wineskin in the smoke, I do not forget your decrees. 84 How long must your servant wait? When will you punish my persecutors? 85 The arrogant dig pitfalls for me, contrary to your law. 86 All your commands are trustworthy; help me, for men persecute me without cause. 87 They almost wiped me from the earth, but I have not forsaken your precepts. 88 Preserve my life according to your love, and I will obey the statutes of your mouth.

NIV

Day eleven in the longest psalm. Just a thought about this longest psalm of twenty-two stanzas. When someone in church decides to sing all five verses of a hymn, we do a little groan, but imagine singing all twenty-two stanzas. The psalmist is fainting within his soul for the salvation of the Lord. We do not need to faint as we have experienced the salvation of the Lord. Now it could be the salvation the psalmist is longing for is relief from his persecutions, of Saul making every effort to find him and kill him. This could be that period in David’s life when he is on the run from Saul, hiding in caves, or wherever. Nevertheless, although we have the salvation of the Lord, or we are saved, in our vernacular, there may be times in our life our soul still longs for some relief from the Lord. There are moments in life, when things are not all peaches and cream. There are times when we hurt, emotionally or physically, maybe both, or possibly even spiritually. We pray and it seems we hear nothing. We long to hear from God, to see an answer to our prayer. Has God heard us? Is he ignoring us? Why are we not healed, or cured, or feel better inside? But we have put our hope in his word. Sometimes our eyes fail, we are straining to see an answer to our need because he has promised to provide for us. We ask when Lord? When will you bring about our need? This wineskin in the smoke is a strange illustration. In the day of this psalmist, bottles were made of skin. If it was left hanging in a tent where the smoke of a fire was not about to escape, the skin would get dark and dingy, a symbol of a distressed soul. Even in those times of distress, of waiting for the answer, we will not forget his decrees, we will not forget he is Lord and he does love and care for us. We will not become so despondent that we lose hope, we will continue to trust in him. But there may be times when we ask him how long we have to wait for his response, for his answer. We know some would say God answers, “yes, no, or not yet”. The “no and not yet” are subjective terms to make some excuse why he has not supplied our request. Some even say, that we are not asking within his will and therefore we will not receive that which we asked. Then the most famous one, “Maybe your faith is not strong enough”. Maybe some of that may be true, some may not. Yet we do feel under the weather at times, the world presses in on us, the tempter makes every effort to destroy us, to make our hope seem hopeless. How long will God wait? How long will he allow Satan to continue to tempt us? Yet we will remain steadfast in our hope. Even though our enemy wants to wipe us off the earth, we will not forget to live in accordance to the Lords word. We will live according to his love for us, living with our hope held high, our trust steadfast, our life in his hands and we have seen his salvation each and every day we breathe. We will never stop professing his love, his precepts, his decrees and his law. Our mouth will not be silenced, we will not go slinking back into the dark, we will take our stand for God.