Life Devotion

Text: Psalm 6:1-6
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Trials and torments of despair crush those who search for answers. Why did this have to happen? What consequences are going to afflict me, O Lord? When anxiety and depression remain, a quick, “It’s going to be okay,” won’t suffice. Lives outside of us and life inside of us seem marked by evil works. And yes, this is the very weakness the enemy uses to craft opposites of love, mercy, hope, and healing.
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The world tells you that your life and inward decisions are a matter of rights and freedom, yet such words end up driving our heart towards misery. In this cry, the psalmist’s prayer of realization displays our lives on the line, crying out for help. And in this cry the hands of our Creator Lord reach out for His troubled children. When our hands can no longer grip our own resolve, there is a Master Crafter who is the splint for our broken bones. Our high Deliverer, Christ Jesus, broke the bonds of death, unraveling the ropes of hell, to save those greatly troubled by sin, darkness, and death.
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In your weakness His great mercy draws near, and it is here where He chose to redeem your soul from all shame and affliction. Faith that is greatly troubled, aware of our soul’s unmerited condition, clings to the merit of Christ alone who suffered God’s anger on the cross for our desperation.
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Here, the greatly troubled receive the Great I AM’s rescue. Call upon Him and He will restore you. He reaches you from uncertainty and reveals mercy from the cross. For how long? Until He returns with sure life everlasting, uniting the grave-stricken with His steadfast promise: you are forgiven. Replacing your cries with blessed reunion.
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Let us pray: Merciful Father, who comforts all the raging seas of life, bestow Your calming hand over all my regrets and strife, that I may hold fast to Your anchor which buries my sin, safe in the knowledge of the salvation and life everlasting which on the cross You dost win. Through Jesus Christ, my Healer, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, One God, now and forever. Amen.
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(Dan Schuetz, Sem II)