Lord, I do not know what to do. I do not know where to go. Everywhere I turn either I am confused if the direction is right or I feel the hot breath of those who hate me. Why is my life not simple? Although before it was uneventful and predictable, my life is now anything but. And no matter how hard I try or how much I surrender, my heart never seems to be at ease. Sleep escapes me. Peace and rest are foreign to me.
So is the heart of many and so is the heart of David. Psalm 143:7-9 reveals his heart crying out from the deepest recesses of his being, “Answer me speedily, O LORD; my spirit fails! Do not hide Your face from me, lest I be like those who go down into the pit. Cause me to hear Your lovingkindness in the morning, for in You do I trust; cause me to know the way in which I should walk, for I lift up my soul to You. Deliver me, O LORD, from my enemies; in You I take shelter.”
Despite his life was in a tailspin, David could put his full trust and dependence upon God. How? 2 Timothy 2:13 encourages us with fatherly love and a promise, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself”. And no matter how long he (and we) had to wait, he trusted that it will all work out to God’s glory. “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them…And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us,” Hebrews 11:13 and 39-40.
So how can we survive perilous times that seem to surround us? Where can we find living hope (see 1 Peter 1:3)? There are four things we can find in verse 10 of Psalm 143. First, “Teach me to do Your will”. It can never be our will and our glory. We should always surrender our will for His will (see Matthew 26:39), our yoke for His yoke (see Matthew 11:29-30), and allow ourselves to be guided or led by God (see Psalm 5:8, 22:5, 27:11, 31:3, 43:3, 61:2, and 139:10 and 24). We need to submit to God’s ways whether that is through repentance or to surrender or as Jesus said, “deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow after me” (see Matthew 16:24).
The second thing we can learn from verse 10 is found, “You are my God”. Malachi 3:6 begins with, “For I am the LORD, I do not change”. Above all else, when we understand that God is God and He is the one who creates, destroys, loves, condemns, restores, dismisses, heals, cuts, delivers, and casts away, our hope can rest upon Him because of His nature. “But without faith [in God] it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him,” Hebrews 11:6. Jesus speaking, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).
Thirdly we can know, “Your Spirit is good”. John 14:26 (Jesus speaking) says, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” James the Lesser encourages and reminds us that, “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.”
And finally God needs to, “Lead me in the land of uprightness”. We wrongly believe that David is asking to be lead to this Promised Land as if “okay, you should be good on your own now”. But David correctly says what God will truly do, “lead me IN…”. This means that God will not abandon us or bumps us on a galactic pinball machine of life. God will take us by the hand (see Isaiah 41:10), go before us (see Deuteronomy 31:8), will be behind us (see Isaiah 52:12 and 58:8), and He will be all around us (see Psalm 3:3). Further, He desires for us to live in the land of uprightness. This means that sometimes God will take us out of a land of sin, rebellion, bad relationships, family/friends who lead us astray, etc. in order for our lives to be able to live to God.
I don’t know which way to go or what to do. What can I do? God is there and will be there for us if we allow Him.