Pleasing God, Making Disciples of Jesus Christ

When We Feel We Are Drowning

PSALM 69:1-3 – Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me. I am weary with my crying out; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.”

 

THEME OF THE DAY:  WHEN WE FEEL WE ARE DROWNING. It is not “if” we feel like the Psalmist in today’s scripture over life’s circumstances but “when” we feel like the waters have come up to our necks.  Life is hard.  Life is overwhelming.  Life’s trying times do make us feel like we are drowning, and we are sinking in the difficulties.  And like the Psalmist, we may have prayed and prayed and prayed for divine help, for divine deliverance, and the heavens seem silent.  And like the Psalmist, we may find ourselves worn out waiting and waiting and waiting for God to intervene in our challenges.  Yet, this is the chief process in which we grow spiritually.  It is when we are overwhelmed by life’s circumstances, we can be overwhelmed by God’s grace and thus grow in the grace and knowledge of Him (2 Peter 3:18).  Let’s explore two places God’s grace will overwhelm us.

 

First, when we feel we are drowning in life’s circumstances, we realize how weak, how fragile, how incapable, how insecure, and how much we desperately need help outside of ourselves. It is then, in that place, we find the overwhelming power of God’s grace.  The Apostle Paul models this weakness turned to strength – So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:7-10).

 

The second place to discover the overwhelming grace of God when overwhelmed by life is in the prayer closet.  The difficulties in life should drive us to prayer, not prayer to simply get relief, but for the Lord Himself.  The type of praying like David offers when in the desert of Judea – O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you (Psalm 63:1-3). Pay attention to what David is not asking for – deliverance, relocation from or a change in his circumstances. No, he wants God, not what God does for him.  He wants to experience the overwhelming grace of His Presence.  And that is what is to develop in our hearts when we feel like we are drowning in life’s circumstances; a desire for God, a yearning for Him, an insatiable thirst to experience the grace-flowing power from His presence.

 

So, drowning in life’s deep waters of tough circumstances.  It is going to come upon all of us.  Let’s ask the Lord to see them for what they are – opportunities to be overwhelmed by His all-sufficient grace!

 

PRAYER: “Father, I praise You that though I may feel like I am drowning in life’s circumstances, I won’t.”

 

QUOTE: “To be overwhelmed by life’s circumstances puts us in a position to be overwhelmed by God’s grace.”

 

In the affection of Christ Jesus,

 

Pastor Jim