Psalms 27:13"I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living."
Here we are this morning the last day of the month, preparing to start the beginning of another month. There are many of us who wondered when this month started whether we would see the end of it. Not because we didn't want to see the end of it, but because the weight of the problems of this world have got us down. You know family problems, health problems, uncertainty on the job, and the list goes on, but the main thing is these things have a tendency to wear on you even the point of giving up. David says in Psalms 55:6, "Oh, that I had wings like a dove! For then would I fly away and be at rest." Sounds familiar doesn't it!
Yet...Our passage this morning says, "I would have fainted". The word faint means to lack courage or spirit, to be weak or dizzy, to lack strength or vigor, to lose consciousness. You know many times in our lives we feel like we have been in a boxing match. We have been hit with everything the world has to offer....sickness and bad health (Body punches - takes away your wind), loss of job or problems on our jobs (left cross), family or marital problems (right cross), death in the family (upper cut) and you know sometimes we even get rabbit or sucker punched (hit from behind, blind sided). We can barely stand, our legs are wobbly, we are reeling and rocking and feels like we are about to lose consciousness and to go down for the count.
WHAT DO WE DO?
Well, our passage says, "I had fainted", but.....I saw something. A
ray of hope! I couldn't see it with the physical eye, yet God has
opened my spiritual eye. What I saw gave me hope and the strength to go on.
WHAT DID I SEE?
"The goodness of the LORD!" Who is the goodness of the LORD, but
Jesus Christ Our Righteousness. But I didn't see it in some heavenly vision but I saw it right here "in the land of the living".
Every day we hear about some mother who throw away her child or some father who just leaves his family, or some son or daughter who has kills their mother or father or both, or somebody committing suicide. What are all these people saying? I've fainted! I can't take it no more. I can't hold up under the burdens and continuous punches of this world. I have No HOPE, No Reason to go on! Before we point the finger...BEWARE!!! We too, will faint, will lose heart and our will to go on under the pressures of this world if we can't see something or someone who gives us hope to keep going on. The Hand of the LORD, the presence of the LORD in our lives. As a father, there are many times that my children can't sleep or are afraid of the things that go bump and rattle in the night. It is then that they want my presence that hey might find comfort in their lives. Just like the earthly father, the heavenly Father knows there are times with need to feel His presence to soothe our fears and to uplift our burden down hearts.
Somebody might say not me, but in this fast pace society that we live in, it is easy to wear ourselves out, to run ourselves to the brink of unconsciousness. For you see there are many causes of faintness in our humanistic bodies...overexertion, lack of food, drugs, alcohol, heart and health disorders just to name a few. Strangely enough these are some of the same causes for our spiritual faintness.
As Christians we need to learn to walk in the Spirit of the LORD and
take care of our spiritual body just like we take care of our physical bodies. We do this by eating of the WORD of God, having our heart fixed on the things of God and beware the things of this world that would intoxicate us and cause us to be unstable and faint.
If you read the 22th Psalm, you will see that it start out with "My
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" David was to the point of giving up. He was about to faint. But if you look at verse 22 of this psalm we see he says, "I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee."
What happen in between is that the Psalmist saw something that gave him hope to keep going on. The presence of God in his life, He found out he was not alone but that God was right there with Him. This is why Psalms 23:1 say, "The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want" and Psalms 24:1 says, "The earth is the LORD's, and the fullness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein"
Without a spiritual eye we shall not see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living or anywhere else for the matter.
Without hope the people shall perish!
Have a Blessed Day...Be PRAYERFUL and THANKFUL for all things!!!
Edward Price