Psalm 61

Below is a devotional though from Joni Eareckson Tada taken from www.joniandfriends.org. 

Hi, this is Joni Eareckson Tada and welcome to Joni and Friends. My friend, Jeannie, asked me if I ever lose my handle on hope because of my disability. She has good reason to ask. Jeannie has been through monumentally difficult times over the last eighteen months. After a painful divorce, she gained a lot of weight, could not get it off, lost her job, and then developed a couple of medical problems related to her weight gain-which made finding a new job even more difficult. Jeannie feels so alone sometimes, so crushed. She's not whining, she's not looking for sympathy, but I can understand. Sometimes problems pile on so high they only seem to wear you down, don't they. Jeannie confided the other day that she didn't feel like she had the strength to even reach out for God.

"Joni, what do you do when you feel hope slipping away?" I don't always have something profound to say when I get asked a question like that, but Scripture does. I've been rescued, I told her, more than many times by Psalm 61 where it says, "From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I." There are a couple of things I love about this verse I told Jeannie. First, no matter if you are at the end of things...at the end of the earth... at the end of yourself, like my friend, please know that God will hear you. Even if it is from the ends of the earth... places you would never go yourself... places like paralysis or, for Jeannie, betrayal and divorce. At some point in the course of our lives, we will find ourselves at the end of it all.

And when you do, your heart grows faint, doesn't it, just like the Psalm says. And Psalm 61 is for anyone who's ever had a fainting heart. And you know what that feels like: you feel overwhelmed, your senses are numb, you are tired, battered and bruised; you don't know how to pray, God seems far away. And just when you feel like giving up, you join with the Psalmist and finally cry out...

"Oh, God, lead me to the rock that is higher than I." Now right there something amazing is voiced. To me, it says that in those times when our hearts are so low and we feel so weak and so depleted that we can not even drag ourselves to that High Rock, we can ask the Rock to come to us. "Lead me to the Rock", we say to God. We can ask the Rock of Ages to take us by our weary hands and lead us to Himself. When we're too weak and overwhelmed to come to Him, He will grab hold of our hand and draw us to Himself!

Friend that might be you today. You may be thinking you have absolutely no strength. But you know enough to ask God to please inspire you, to give you the 'want to,' give you the desire to reach out to God. There are times when you need to get above things and you can call out to Jesus who is the Rock that is higher than you. It happened to Jeannie -- things are looking up for my friend right now. And Psalm 61 and the grace of God which can be found in it-and in all of God's Word-is her rock. Let Him be your rock today, would you?

By the way, if you have some insights you'd like to share about Psalm 61 and how God has led you to Himself when you've felt like giving up, I'd like to hear about it. Just share your heart with me today would you at joniandfriendsradio.org. And while you're there, don't forget to pick up your Family Retreat brochures to give to someone with a disability whom you think could really, really benefit by attending one of our Family Retreats. Because there are a lot of disabled people out there who are too weak to even cry out and you can encourage them with Psalm 61 and remind them that Jesus will lead them to Himself. So until next time, keep Psalm 61 open on your desk, okay? Okay!