“Hear my prayer, Lord, listen to my cry for help; do not be deaf to my weeping. I dwell with you as a foreigner, a stranger, as all my ancestors were. Look away from me, that I may enjoy life again before I depart and am no more.”
- Psalm 39:12-13 -

In this Psalm, David’s anguish leads to a powerful and insightful prayer (v 4). He is not asking to be given a date or time for his demise, but rather for a clearer perspective on life and death. Like Job, he becomes aware that life is fleeting and that, in relative terms, ‘Everyone is but a breath’ (v 5). Grasping the shortness of our earthly lives may help us to get an eternal perspective and take every opportunity to serve God’s plan for us.

It is sad that it took suffering and persecution to bring Job and David to this place of understanding and insight, but that seems to have been a part of what God was doing in their lives. He does not waste our sorrows, and neither should we. If we will follow David’s example of meditating on God’s Word, crying out to him from our burning hearts, repenting, and putting our hope in the Lord (v 7), then he will carry us through our circumstances, however long or short our lives turn out to be (12-13).

PRAYER: Yes Lord, my life has many ups and downs. Sometimes I feel like asking you to look away, but you are for me, not against me. Hallelujah, all praise to you.

(A Summary from Encounter with God)