Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am in trouble; my eye wastes away with grief, yes, my soul and my body! For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away. I am a reproach among all my enemies, but especially among my neighbors, and am repulsive to my acquaintances. Those who see me outside flee from me. I am forgotten like a dead man, out of mind; I am like a broken vessel. (Psalm 31:9-12)
I must admit that reading many of David’s psalms is like riding an emotional roller coaster. One moment he is praising God, proclaiming his trust and confidence in His deliverance, and the next he is in the depths of despair. The verses above, for instance, come on the heels of David’s expressed assurance that God will preserve him from his enemies. Yet in these verses, he describes his life as one of grief and sighing. Each trial produces another sigh, and with each sigh his body is robbed of just a bit more of its vitality and strength. The memory of his failures plague his mind and amplifies his sense of being viewed as repulsive in the eyes of friends and foe. He feels as if his life’s light is going out; he believes he is forgotten and lost.
“Lost,” in fact, would be a more literal word to use instead of “broken” when David describes himself as a broken vessel. The Hebrew word אבד avad means to be lost with the implication that being lost eventually leads to being destroyed. Here is why I think it is important to bring this up; Scripture hints that whatever is lost is not because its owner misplaced it, necessarily, but because the article has become lost from its owner. As it is written, “The way of the wicked shall perish (literally, goes lost)” (Psalm 1:6). Thus we conclude that God never abandons or loses any of His people. If they are lost it is because they become lost from God, which is to say they wandered away. It is likely that they became so entrenched in self — whether their desires or their despair — that they considered themselves to be a broken vessel.
I think that most of us can identify with David’s emotional roller coaster. Personally I’m no stranger to feeling victorious, only to be followed by a sense of feeling defeated and lost. It is in those latter times that I could easily be so intertwined with my emotions that I simply drift away from an intimacy with the Creator. Thankfully, however, He is the Good Shepherd who is willing to leave the ninety-nine and go searching for that one who has allowed himself to become lost — not just those who choose to walk in sin but also those who, like David, are grief stricken and in despair.
This notion reminds me of what the Scripture has to say about our Good Shepherd: “A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench” (Matthew 12:20). If we are feeling broken, He will not leave us forlorn but will reach out to heal what is broken. If we feel as if our life’s light is slowly being extinguished, He will not put it out; He will breathe upon us and attempt to rekindle the fire and light so that we may be restored to the joy of our salvation.
Blessings and Shalom,
Bill
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