Daily Lesson for April 30, 2021

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 40 verses 12 through 14:

12 You are the Lord;

do not withhold your compassion from me; *

let your love and your faithfulness keep me safe for ever,

13 For innumerable troubles have crowded upon me;

my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see; *

they are more in number than the hairs of my head,

and my heart fails me.

14 Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me; *

O Lord, make haste to help me.

I love this psalm and especially its 13th verse and the poignant and powerful words, "I cannot see."

What cannot be seen? A way forward? A way out? A way through? The sun? The future? How in the world he'll hold out or hold on?

Perhaps all these things.

The writer is overwhelmed. He is overcome. He is distraught. His sins have found him out. His life has fallen apart. As he says, his heart has failed him.

Yet, as St. John said in his Gospel, "when our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts."

The Psalmist cannot see. He cannot feel. He is absolutely numb to all sense of hope or future. And what would I tell him? To hold on.

And as first verse of the Psalm says, "I waited patiently for the Lord and He inclined unto me and heard my cry."

Sometimes, when our hearts are so broken we can't hardly move, there is nothing we can do but wait, and pray, and as the old saying goes, tie a knot at the end of the rope and try to hold on for another day.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.