David begins the sixth psalm: “O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath. Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing; heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled” (6:1,2). Charles Spurgeon (Can you tell I have Spurgeon’s The Treasury of David close by as I am reading through the Psalms?) observed, “This is the right way to plead with God if we would prevail. Urge not your goodness or your greatness, but plead your sin and your littleness. Cry, I am weak, therefore O Lord, give me strength and crush me not.”
David ends with “The Lord has heard my plea; the Lord accepts my prayer” (6:9). Again, Spurgeon: “This is frequently the privilege of the saints. . . . Assured confidence is no idle dream, for when the Holy Ghost bestows it upon us, we know its reality, and could not doubt it, even though all men should deride our boldness.” Out of our weakness, let us always be crying out to God with the confidence that he hears us and answers us. “For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. . . . If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:8,11)
O thou from whom all goodness flows,
I lift my soul to thee;
In all my sorrows, conflicts, woes,
Good Lord, remember me. -- Thomas Haweis (1791)
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