Psalm 142: 1-3a (NLT)
I cry out to the LORD; I plead for the LORD’s mercy. I pour out my complaints before him and tell him all my troubles. When I am overwhelmed, you alone know the way I should turn.
David was never afraid to be brutally honest in his psalms. And while he had been anointed as a teenager to one day become King of Israel—he had that future in his back pocket, so to speak—he still struggled and worried and complained. Had he lived in our day I’m quite sure his counselors would have been encouraging him to seek medication for depression as well as anxiety! Get a grip, David! Why are you so unsettled? What’s with all these mood swings? You need to lighten up.
Every follower of Christ should return to the psalms with regularity, not only for the great comfort that can be found within her beautifully crafted songs, but also for the honest expression of the troubles that even the strongest Christian will most likely experience…the kind of trouble that Jesus himself guaranteed we would encounter (Jn. 16:33). The beginning of today’s psalm doesn’t make trying times out to be the exception, but rather, a normal part of life on a deeply fallen world. “When I am overwhelmed” is David’s guilt-free admission that he doesn’t have all the answers. He doesn’t have it all together. He doesn’t have a way to make his sorrows go away. “You alone know the way I should turn” is his recognition that only God truly knows what is happening sometimes. Is that enough for you? For me? It was enough for David.
David wrote this psalm while stuck in one of many caves that he and his men used to hide from King Saul. Spurgeon notes that, “Caves make good closets for prayer; their gloom and solitude are helpful to the exercise of devotion. Had David prayed as much in his palace as he did in his cave, he might never have fallen into the act which brought such misery upon his later days.” Think about that for a moment. When is your prayer life most alive? During trials and tribulations, of course. When do we reach most fervently for God? In the hour of our greatest need. Praise the Lord that he does not use our inconsistency against us, nor hold it up as “Exhibit A” to dismiss our requests as totally selfish and our relationship with Him as totally self-serving.
Most of us tend to distance ourselves from people that have a tendency to complain. David was no whiner. He was simply pouring out his troubled thoughts to his Lord, not to inform him, but to relieve himself of some of the burden. That is why the Apostle Paul encouraged us to, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God” (Phil. 4:6). David had a great track record of going to his Heavenly Father when he felt overwhelmed, and he was not ashamed to admit when those seasons came into his life. God knows every detail of what you are going through, and He is pleased when you come to him to talk about it…to cry out…to plead…and yes, even to complain.
God alone is always in possession of the way we should turn. Sometimes, that turning will be towards our brothers and sisters in Christ to ask for help. Sometimes it might be to a place of serious self-reflection and repentance. Other times it will be solely towards His Word. And still others will be just to sit and tell Him all that is on your heart.
