One thing to appreciate about the Bible in general and the psalms in particular is that we need not pretend that all is well when it’s not. Psalms 38 and 39 describe such a period in the life of David. Here are some highlights.

O Lord, don’t punish me while you are angry! Your arrows have struck deep; your blows are crushing me. Because of your anger, my body is sick, my health is broken beneath my sins. They are like a flood, higher than my head; they are a burden too heavy to bear…Meanwhile my enemies are trying to kill me. They plot my ruin and spend all their waking hours planning treachery. (Psalm 38.1 – 4…12, TLB)

Psalm 38 ends with a prayer. What else can he do?

Don’t leave me, Lord; don’t go away! (Psalm 38.21, TLB)

The problems continue into Psalm 39, written to be performed by Jeduthun, whom we met yesterday.

“To the choirmaster: to Jeduthun. A Psalm of David.”

I said to myself, I’m going to quit complaining! I’ll keep quiet, especially when the ungodly are around me. (Psalm 39.1, TLB)

Then a perspective on the brevity of life:

Lord, help me to realize how brief my time on earth will be. Help me to know that I am here for but a moment more. My life is no longer than my hand! My whole lifetime is but a moment to you. Proud man! Frail as breath! A shadow! And all his busy rushing ends in nothing. He heaps up riches for someone else to spend. And so, Lord, my only hope is in you. (Psalm 39.4 – 7, TLB)

And he ends, again, with a prayer:

Save me from being overpowered by my sins, for even fools will mock me then…Lord, don’t hit me anymore—I am exhausted beneath your hand…Hear my prayer, O Lord; listen to my cry! Don’t sit back, unmindful of my tears. For I am your guest. I am a traveler passing through the earth, as all my fathers were. Spare me, Lord! Let me recover and be filled with happiness again before my death. (Psalm 39.8, 10, 12, 13, TLB)

Deliverance seems to come in Psalm 40. Stay tuned. In the meantime, life was tough for the Apostle Paul, also:

Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. (2 Corinthians 11.23 – 27, ESV)