This chapter begins with the title, "A prayer of an afflicted man. When he is faint and pours out his lament before the LORD."
While this Psalm does not give us any specifics about who is being afflicted, it does teach us about the importance of pouring our hearts out to God when we do deal with injustice in this world.
The issue of this Psalm is not about how one gets afflicted. The point is when we go through a time of suffering, we can just sit there and feel sorry for ourselves, or we can try to fix it ourselves, or we can turn to the God who is in charge of our lives for comfort during such times. The last choice is what the psalmist is doing.
The point for us is about looking to God for comfort to help us through our own affliction. It is about seeing our lives and even the existence of the world from God’s perspective. This is the key idea (seeing life from God’s perspective in rough times) being presented in this Psalm.
[1] Hear my prayer, O LORD, and let my cry come unto Thee. [2] Hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble; incline Thine ear unto me: in the day when I call answer me speedily.
Whatever the writer of this Psalm is going through, he starts off by doing the right thing. The unnamed Psalm writer was going through a lot of pain for an unstated reason. The writer takes that pain and gives it over to God for his own comfort.
If you learn nothing else from this chapter, remember that during the darkest and most difficult times of one's life, one can turn to God for a source of comfort. We can always ask God to give us peace and comfort through such times.
While this Psalm does not give us any specifics about who is being afflicted, it does teach us about the importance of pouring our hearts out to God when we do deal with injustice in this world.
The issue of this Psalm is not about how one gets afflicted. The point is when we go through a time of suffering, we can just sit there and feel sorry for ourselves, or we can try to fix it ourselves, or we can turn to the God who is in charge of our lives for comfort during such times. The last choice is what the psalmist is doing.
The point for us is about looking to God for comfort to help us through our own affliction. It is about seeing our lives and even the existence of the world from God’s perspective. This is the key idea (seeing life from God’s perspective in rough times) being presented in this Psalm.
[1] Hear my prayer, O LORD, and let my cry come unto Thee. [2] Hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble; incline Thine ear unto me: in the day when I call answer me speedily.
Whatever the writer of this Psalm is going through, he starts off by doing the right thing. The unnamed Psalm writer was going through a lot of pain for an unstated reason. The writer takes that pain and gives it over to God for his own comfort.
If you learn nothing else from this chapter, remember that during the darkest and most difficult times of one's life, one can turn to God for a source of comfort. We can always ask God to give us peace and comfort through such times.