Psalms 38:22

Psalms 38:22

Make haste to help me, O Lord my salvation.

This verse demands God, the most high, the almighty for something. We do not write “do this ASAP” when communicating with our superiors. But the demanding tone in this verse is even worse. This verse is plainly unacceptable unless backed up with a strong reason. Let us meditate why this was written so.

The context

David was a person very much loved by God, The Father. Even Jesus took a lot of pride in being addressed as “son of David”. He never stopped others when they called him so. Mathew and Luke took pains in gathering the genealogy of Jesus separately and both wanted to mention Jesus was not just a Jew, but a royal son, a son of David. The bible mentions David’s name second after Jesus in the number of occurrences.

Such an honored person, failed miserably in the peak of his life time. He was a successful king, honored very much by everybody else in his country, God loved him, but still he failed. We know how he failed. (If not, please read 2 Samuel Cp.11 for details). But even after this failure, God still kept his promises to David. This meditation focuses on what made God accept David back.

The prayer of reconciliation

This psalm (38) displays the pains, turmoil, humility and surrender David did or went through to gain his love back with the Almighty. As believers, we also do fail in our lives. We need this understanding on how to get up from our failures.

Trouble David goes through

1.       Wrath of God (Vs 1 to 3)

We should know how destructive God’s anger can be.

1.       God drowned the whole earth except Noah’s family when they were evil.

2.       Sodom & Gomorrah – destroyed by fire.

3.       Lot’s wife for a simple disobedience.

4.       Many other incidents where God destroys Jews with fire, plague.

5.       When 42 young mocked Elijah’s bald head, God sent two female bears and killed them.

6.       Ananias and Sapphira – Even after Jesus died and rose again, bringing us the wonderful opportunity of being justified. They were killed in a second.

God’s anger is not survivable. Our sins are similar. We cannot just keep sinning and easily get away with.

2.       Scared enough to Lose health - Vs. 3,8,10.

a.      Broken joints, paining bones.

b.      Weak and feeble.

c.      Heart pounding.

3.       Confused to death – Vs.17.

I am ready to halt. I am that sorrowful.

4.       The enemy becomes stronger as we become weak. Vs

a.       We need to remember that Satan is much more powerful when we are weak. He had the courage of tempting Jesus when he was hungry in the wilderness and after 40 days.

b.      Here, when weakness starts from guilt, it the easiest for Satan to discourage and make us fall.

c.       One sin always leads to another and another till death.

5.       Lose all friends vs.11

This is what worldly friends and relatives are for. When you are in trouble, many help. But there are a lot of limitations for them. The only person we should depend is God.

6.       Lose God’s presence - vs.21

This is the worst situation in our lives. When God gives up on us or says "I don’t care what XYZ does", we are doomed forever.

Prayer of Reconciliation

1.       Confession – My Sin (Vs.3)

2.       My sinful foolishness – Acceptance that Sin is foolish, not just wrong. – Vs.5

3.       Wounds Stink (Vs.5) – A situation a king could never go through. But David imagines himself to be that low in life when he has sinned.

4.       Mourning all day long. (vs.6) –

a.       We do that only in funerals. But, losing God’s grace is a LOT WORSE THAN LOSING FAMILY. We need to always remember that.

b.      The mind has to be filled with the longing for salvation. Sin is that worse.

Now, we should have a justification why David “demands” God for salvation. He doesn’t demand. He is drowning. He is lost all other hope and crying aloud for help. We lose all our formal etiquette and style when doing so. All we think about at that time is that that “Any delay in help at this time when we sin, is death. We absolutely need an immediate reconciliation with God”.

As a moral of this meditation, we can take these three messages:

1.       SIN is destructive. It should not be handled or done easily. We got be as far away as possible from this sin.

2.       After we have received Grace, it is not easy to reconcile. READ HEBREWS 6:4,5,6. We have to go through all the pain.

3.       Although we are drowned in Sin, however deeply buried. “WE STILL HAVE HOPE IN GOD”. God loves us still and he will help us out. All we need is to cry out for help. Amen.