Praying Psalms of Deliverance
The rescue you need today points to the Rescue to come.
If you haven’t gotten started with the 40 Days of Psalms prayer calendar yet, there are still several weeks left on it. Today’s post is on Psalm 69, one of the psalms on the calendar for today. If you’re new to praying psalms, you might start here.
Read the first three verses of Psalm 69 slowly.
If you feel like pausing at any point, pause. If you’re moved to pray, pray. And if you don’t experience either of those tugs, just soak in the words.
Save me, O God!
For the waters have come up to my neck.
I sink in deep mire,
where there is no foothold;
I have come into deep waters,
and the flood sweeps over me.
I am weary with my crying out;
my throat is parched.
My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.
When was the last time you felt like you were drowning? Maybe you’re experiencing that right now. At some point, we’ve all known the feeling of the psalmist when he says, “The waters have come up to my neck.”
In these times, the emotions that fuel our prayers can be overwhelming. And yet, our words often become simple and focused. Desperation has a way of stripping everything unnecessary from our pleas: “Save me, O God!”
Here, the psalmist finds himself unjustly persecuted: “More in number than the hairs of my head are those who hate me without cause. . .those who attack me with lies” (verse 4). And yet his simple cry for God’s deliverance fits any number of painful circumstances: abuse, addiction, depression, a crumbling marriage, the loss of a job, the death of a loved one. The list could go on.
For much of Psalm 69, the author toils in the agonizing in-between. The Lord can fling a mountain into the sea like a pebble. And yet, that same God often responds to our prayers—at least initially—by asking us to wait. Again, verse 3:
I am weary with crying out;
my throat is parched.
My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.
Yet, even when the Lord hasn’t provided a way out of the crisis, we can choose to recall his character:
At an acceptable time, O God,
in the abundance of your steadfast love
answer me in your saving faithfulness.
(verse 13)
God’s steadfast love is there, even when it doesn’t feel like it. And this gets at the heart of what we long for when we’re suffering. Yes, of course, we want the Lord to deliver us from the pain. But we also just want to be sure that the Lord is present with us:
Hide not your face from your servant. . .Draw near to my soul, redeem me. (verses 17–18)
But does God always meet us in life’s floodwaters? In the Bible, water can bring renewal—or destruction. Baptism reflects the Lord washing away our sins. And yet, in Scripture, water can also bring chaos and danger. Think of the great flood that Noah outlasted in the ark.
Similarly, in Isaiah 43:1–3a, passing through water depicts a trial:
But now thus says the Lord,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
Here, the Lord plainly speaks the words we long to hear when we’re in turmoil:
I will be with you.
When enemies attack with lies, the Lord says to his people: I will be with you. When the cravings of addiction resurface, God Almighty says: I will be with you. When a marriage is in shambles, the Savior says: I will be with you.
When civilization itself seems to be unraveling, the Lord’s words do not change.
I will be with you.
God will be with his people forever. And one day, he will be with us in a world where all pain is gone, where death itself has vanished. I’m talking about the return of Jesus Christ and the renewal of all things. Every rescue we experience in this life points us forward to that Day. When our prayers for deliverance are answered in the here-and-now, it brings relief and gratitude. And yet that very solace only deepens our longing for what lies ahead.
I don’t think I’m imagining the glimpses of the new heaven and the new earth that appear in one of the final verses of Psalm 69:
Let heaven and earth praise him,
the seas and everything that moves in them.
(verse 34)
The Day is coming when all creation will praise him.
And when we will as never before.