Word of Encouragement (5/28/2026)

To you, O Lord, I call; my rock, be not deaf to me, lest, if you be silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit. Hear the voice of my pleas for mercy, when I cry to you for help, when I lift up my hands toward your most holy sanctuary (Ps. 28:1-2)‍

Can you identify with David’s words and sentiment in this prayer? Maybe some of you do. You find yourself in dire need, or you sense an impending crisis. You are brought low in humility, painful aware of your frailty and vulnerability, You look up to heaven and stretch out your arms and cry out to God for help. Or you may feel distant from David and what he might be going through. Your life seems to be going smoothly without much trouble, both at the present moment and on the horizon. You can vaguely remember the time when things were hard, but you are glad that it feels like a distant past. So, you are tempted to gloss over this prayer, feeling let down that it is one of those days when your devotional reading doesn’t seem relevant to you.

We should be grateful for those days when God’s Word grips our hearts and speaks to us exactly what we need to hear at that moment. And we wish that those days come more frequently than what our experience has been. We might have developed an idea that we can’t expect God’s Word to “hit” us every day. Maybe, deep inside, we blame God for this. “Why does God not speak to me more powerfully?”

But can it be that our lackluster response to God’s Word has much more to do with the condition of our hearts than how relevant or irrelevant the Scripture passage may seem to us on a particular day? “Hunger is the best sauce.” When we are starving, we can eat anything. When we are poor in spirit, God’s Word comes to us as the rain falls on the parched land. But when we are too full of ourselves, we care little about God’s Word.

Many of us may not find a passage like today’s directly relevant to us. But it is likely to be exactly what we need to hear, not because it is readily applicable to us but because it serves as a diagnostic for our spiritual condition. When the Word of God does not touch us, it may be an indication that our spirits are not well. Can we say that we are doing well spiritually if we do not seek God with the kind of urgency that David displays in this prayer?

Of course, you may be baking in the light of God’s goodness, your heart bursting with gratitude. But this can be built on a shaky foundation. It is a shaky foundation if it is due only to the extraordinary measure of God’s gift without the longing for God, which David demonstrates in this prayer. This prayer challenges us to examine our hearts. In that sense, it is eminently relevant and applicable.