Before moving on to verse three a thought came to me due to reading the Message version of these verses.
I cry out to God with my voice - To God with my voice; And He gave ear to me. In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; My hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing; My soul refused to be comforted.
The Message says, I yell out to my God, I yell with all my might. I yell at the top of my lungs. He listens. I found myself in trouble and went looking for my Lord; my life was an open wound that wouldn't heal. When my friends said, "Everything will turn out all right," I didn't believe a word they said.
I found myself in trouble and went looking for my Lord? Why did he have to go looking for his Lord? I know what that looks like for me. When I find myself in trouble my search for God intensifies. There have been times with Ann Marie and I in our marriage when she expresses some dissatisfaction and my response is to place immediate attention on fixing her dissatisfaction. Why? Because I found myself, my marriage in trouble and so I went looking for a resolution. What would it look like if the intensity for my marriage or for God was there more often or more constant? How much trouble could be avoided?
Psalm 77:3 I remembered God, and was troubled; I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed.
Selah. (pause, and calmly think of that)
I remembered God, and was troubled; Troubled number two. Remember the first troubled was in everything of life. This troubled is in spirit.
I complained. I expressed feelings of pain, dissatisfaction, resentment. I made a formal accusation I brought a formal charge. I told God of my pains, and ailments. Again the Message paints this picture so well. I remember God - and shake my head. I bow my head - then wring my hands.
Is it possible to remembered God and be troubled? ABSOLUTELY! Here's what makes that possible for me. I get into these places where the things I see, hear, taste, touch and smell are so real that they consume me. I think on them. I meditate on them. I talk about them. I make choices based on them. I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel and that in and of itself causes me to be troubled. But for me as a believer I often find myself going to God almost after the fact and then remembering Him, a teaching I've heard in the past or a word that I got in the past from reading the Bible or a book, I become more troubled than before. Why? Because I am now faced with not only the facts which again are the things I see, hear, taste, touch and smell but now I have remembered God, and the truth of His word.
I complained and my spirit was overwhelmed! I spoke of the trouble so much that it outweighed the truth. I thought or spoke of the trouble so much that it became my truth. I lost sight of God being my source. What I see, what I am feeling, what I am experiencing is so real and so big that it has overwhelmed any thought of God. It's at this point that I am officially a "Troubled Believer."
Isaiah 50:10 Who among you fears the Lord? Who obeys the voice of His Servant? Who walks in darkness and has no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely upon his God.
As a troubled believer I am walking in darkness. I am unable to see the light. What I am am learning to do better, is that when I can't see God, I am able to trust in His name. Whenever we are moving into a new spiritual dimension, we will be required to upgrade or advance our relationship with God. My journey is a progressive revelation of relationship with God. Then out of that relationship my response is one that brings glory and honor to Him. The journey my life has been on til now has been to find what God is doing and follow it, join it, serve in it. No longer is that the case. I am learning how to trust and rely on the nature of God and not on what I perceive He's doing. God's nature never changes! What He's doing or what I perceive He's doing is constantly changing. Who He is, His nature, is consistent yet unpredictable in what He does.
SELAH! Pause and think on that.
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