Distress – Being a Pilgrim

“Turn to me and have mercy, for I am alone and in deep distress. My problems go from bad to worse. Oh, save me from them all! Feel my pain and see my trouble. Forgive all my sins.”
Psalm 25:16-18 NLT

If we read the news reports today we will find stories of “deep distress” leaping out of the pages, assaulting our standards of right and wrong, inciting panic, and even sucking us into having the same feelings ourselves. We could be excused for thoughts about what a terrible place the UK is to live in. Stories of debt, council tax arrears, forced installation of prepayment utility meters, homelessness, paedophilia, murders, phone thefts – the list is endless and our senses of decency are violated day after day. Well, what we experience today was not unknown in David’s day. Of course, in those days it was a different culture, a different society, but ever since the Fall, human beings have been in “deep distress” whenever and wherever they have lived. David had problems that he said were going “from bad to worse”, putting him on what looked a downward spiral into misery and depression. What his problems were he doesn’t say, but running a kingdom was never going to be easy, with stories of intrigue, internal jostling for positions, thoughts of attack, and that was just in his palace. There were the threats from the nations around him. There was a people to govern and keep happy. Idolatry was also a problem in Israel, generation after generation. And then there were all those wives and concubines …..

All of this got too much for David and he cried out to God for mercy. In desperation, he asked God to “save [him] from them all”, and, for good measure, he confessed all his sins. David was prone to depression, and we can see that in his writings. Psalm 31:9, “Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am in distress. Tears blur my eyes. My body and soul are withering away“. And then we have Psalm 13:2-3, “How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul, with sorrow in my heart every day? How long will my enemy have the upper hand? Turn and answer me, O Lord my God! Restore the sparkle to my eyes, or I will die“. David had many personal struggles, and his affair with Bathsheba was such an example. In that whole episode he broke several commandments – the sixth (murder), the seventh (adultery) and tenth (coveting someone else’s wife) come immediately to mind. But before us men start adopting a position on the higher moral ground, claiming that we have never done any of these things, remembering the words of Jesus in Matthew 5 and 6 will soon bring us back down to earth. Matthew 5:21-22a, 28, “You have heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.’ But I say, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! … “But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart”. But with all his real and imagined potential struggles, no wonder David found himself in “deep distress”.

Are we pilgrims in “deep distress” today? Due to poor choices or unforeseen circumstances, we might find ourselves in a place of being overwhelmed by our problems. Fortunately we have a loving Heavenly Father who will help us get back to the place where we should be. There is much in His Word that will help us, and a good place to start is in Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take”. I also find encouragement in Paul’s suggestion, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7). Or how about 1 Peter 5:7, “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you”. Through all our problems, though, we must never lose hope. Paul wrote, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them” (Romans 8:28). The one positive thing in all our problems is that we can pray. Unfortunately, we see time and time again that people in our churches who find themselves in difficulties, then stop fellowshipping with their fellow believers, preferring to stay at home. But sharing our problems with a trusted believing friend, praying together, will soon bring a solution. At a time of personal “deep distress” during my daughter’s illness, an army of prayer warriors rose up in the church my wife and I attended, and, in answer to theirs, and our, prayers of faith, she was healed so totally and miraculously that the doctors wrote on her medical notes that “this is nothing short of a miracle”.

We have a loving Heavenly Father, who loves us so much that He sent His Son Jesus to die for us, for the forgiveness of our sins. That is how much He loves us, and He will not see His children struggle in “deep distress” for a moment.

Dear Lord, in the midst of our times of distress, we seek your comforting presence. Wrap us in your loving embrace, and grant us the serenity to face these troubled moments. Let your divine light shine upon us, banishing the shadows of fear and doubt. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

“Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!
His faithful love endures forever.
“Lord, help!” they cried in their trouble,
and He rescued them from their distress.
Let them praise the Lord for His great love
and for the wonderful things He has done for them.
Those who are wise will take all this to heart;
they will see in our history the faithful love of the Lord.”
Psalms‬ ‭107:1, 6, 31, 43‬ ‭NLT‬‬

This is a wonderful Psalm full of testimonies about the goodness of God, about His saving grace and response to His people’s distress. The sixth verse is repeated a further three times, on each occasion defining a pivotal moment, when God answered His people’s cries for help in their times of trouble. Two rescue themes in this Psalm emerge – one of them when God responds to His people’s predicament caused by their own bad choices, and the other when they were caught up in a natural calamity. The Psalm concludes with a section outlining the consequences of “wickedness” being applied to the environment in which the people live, and then how the hungry and poor are blessed, while the leaders, the “princes” are let loose into “wastelands”. This Psalm could almost be the plot of a movie, setting out as it does a storyboard of how the oppressed and the distressed come through in the end, with God’s help, into a place of rescue.

What about distress today? There is certainly enough of it around us, even in the supposedly affluent Western societies in which some of us live. In particular in the UK the Food Banks are in great demand, as people in need are provided with sufficient provisions to keep them going in their time of distress. Charity shops abound in shopping centres once thrumming with commerce but now full of empty shops. There is almost a society within society, defining a distressed underclass, surely defining a modern equivalent of the Biblical times that we read about in this Psalm. And a thought of compassion enters my mind, perhaps a God-thought, of how people, rich and poor, stagger through life without God in their lives. Everyone, at one time or another, will endure a crisis where they need Someone to call out to, Someone who will “rescue them in their distress”. As verses 10 and 11 say, they sit in darkness and deepest gloom, imprisoned in iron chains of misery, their rebellion against God compounding their distress.

Are any of us in difficulties this morning? The loving Heavenly Father that I know is there for us and with us. And as we cry out in our troubles, The Psalmist says that He will save us from our distress. As I look back over my life, to the times when I offered up to God my prayerful cries for help, to each I received one of three possible outcomes. The first was an instant Divine rescue – an immediate answer to my prayer. The second was also a positive God-response, but one that took place over a period of time, in one case nearly a year. And the third was no response at all, leaving me in a hard and difficult place. But through it all, whatever the response, I know that God was there for me. So today, I not only believe that He answers prayer. I know that He does. And a negative or lacking response does not mean that God doesn’t care for me. Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans – “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord“. So in the times of silence, while I walk in my life-pilgrimage through difficult times of trouble, I know that God is there with me. I only have to reach out and feel His touch. Somehow the troubles don’t seem nearly as bad then.