13 But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord.
At an acceptable time, O God,
in the abundance of your steadfast love answer me in your saving faithfulness.
14 Deliver me
from sinking in the mire;
let me be delivered from my enemies
and from the deep waters.
15 Let not the flood sweep over me,
or the deep swallow me up,
or the pit close its mouth over me.
We would like rescue to come before we get bogged down in the mire and prior to the rising of the flood tides.
But that wouldn't really be rescue; and it wouldn't demand our prayers -- not mine anyways.
Rescue comes. It always comes because God is the great rescuer. God's saving faithfulness knows no end.
But rescue always comes in its own time and in its own way. We have to wait upon it. We have trust it. We have to hope in it. This is what we call learning to have faith, which the Bible describes as "the substance of things hoped for, yet unseen." We see the tide rising and we feel overwhelmed. The bog is thick and we're mired down with no prospect for either forward progress not backward retreat; we're stuck. This is when we know we can't rescue ourselves. Salvation won't be our own doing. It has to come from somewhere else. And, therefore, we will have to wait on it -- right where we are.
And in the meantime, there's prayer.
No comments:
Post a Comment