My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to your word.
Psalm 119 v. 28
Exchanging WhatsApp messages with family earlier in the week the following came back in response to the comment ‘Hope everyone is doing OK back at school.’
‘We’re generally doing OK, all feeling a little weary but getting there.’ That is actually quite a positive state of affairs compared with many and I guess all have experienced the weariness brought on by lockdown and related issues such as Zoom meetings. This is partly because we have been subjected to circumstances which none of us have known in living memory. It is also because we gain energy and stimulation from our daily contacts with other people. This is something which we normally take for granted but when it us taken away we find that the lack of that contact affects us in ways we could not have imagined.
It can produce physical weariness as already indicated. It can produce a sadness and melancholy and actually result in specific physical symptoms, some of which may have long term effects.
Now in a strange sort of way this might actually be a good thing for it demonstrates what a full and rounded life actually requires. It reminds us that God made us to be relational and community orientated beings because we are made in his likeness and he is a relational God within the Trinity and in his dealing with his human creation.
When we forget this or even ignore it then we will inevitably be out of sorts. The Psalmist knew this when he penned the verse I have highlighted for today. We are not told what were the causes of his weariness and sorrow. It could have been a bereavement. It could have been, like us with Covid, a situation he had never experienced before. We simply don’t know. But the solution is what we should focus on rather than the cause.
See what he does. He prays to his God! And how does he pray? He lays out the problem to God. He doesn’t bottle it up but simply acknowledges the situation he is in. He may have tried other solutions, we don’t know, but now he appeals to what? Your (God’s) word!
There he knows he will find the strength he needs. From previous experience? I think so. As I read the next verse
Keep me from deceitful ways; be gracious top me through your law. V.29
I wonder if his present weariness and sorrow stem from something he has done which is out of step with God’s law. So he prays for forgiveness and the grace of God mediated through his law.
Whatever it is, his mindset is to come back to God’s Word. I wonder as I write this whether we, you the reader and I the writer, have the same mindset or whether we look for other remedies. If we do they might help in some respects but ultimately they will let us down for it is, for us, God’s grace mediated through Jesus that is the only sure relief.
Keep looking to Jesus through the Word!
O soul are you weary and troubled
No light in the darkness you see
There’s light for a look at the Saviour
And life more abundant and free
Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in His wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace