Getting The Right Focus

Psalm 6

For the choir director: A psalm of David, to be accompanied by an eight-stringed instrument.

1O LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger

or discipline me in your rage.

2Have compassion on me, LORD, for I am weak.

Heal me, LORD, for my body is in agony.

3I am sick at heart.

How long, O LORD, until you restore me?

4Return, O LORD, and rescue me.

Save me because of your unfailing love.

5For in death, who remembers you?

Who can praise you from the grave?

6I am worn out from sobbing.

Every night tears drench my bed;

my pillow is wet from weeping.

7My vision is blurred by grief;

my eyes are worn out because of all my enemies.

8Go away, all you who do evil,

for the LORD has heard my crying.

9The LORD has heard my plea;

the LORD will answer my prayer.

10May all my enemies be disgraced and terrified.

May they suddenly turn back in shame.

Whenever he was in a no-win situation, the noted reformer John Calvin quoted verse 3 of this psalm. But a no-win situation to us is not necessarily a no-win situation to God. Early in his ministry John Calvin was driven out of the city of Geneva, Switzerland, and he left feeling that the city was hopeless.

Years later God brought him back to Geneva, almost against his will, and Geneva became the center of his greatest triumphs. All the while Calvin learned to focus more and more on the Lord and less and less on his daily successes.

Obviously the writer of this psalm was feeling lousy. He was sick—both in soul and body. He was troubled by his heart within and by enemies without. He seemed to believe that his miserable condition was a judgment from God, and he called out for mercy.

When we are ill, our suffering often seems to affect us in both physical and spiritual ways. Because we feel bad spiritually, our health suffers, which makes us even more susceptible to spiritual attack. Soon things begin to spiral quickly downward. Illness also tends to bring our focus to ourself and our own troubles, just as it did for David in the first seven verses. But, as David shows us in verse 8, when we look to God in faith, our burdens begin to lift.

Lord, I am sick of soul.

I know you see my tears.

Oh, save me for your mercies’ sake

And drive away my fears.

OLD SCOTTISH PSALTER, ADAPTED

Bible Networking

This is one of seven penitential psalms. The others are 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143.

Notable Quotable

“However low I may sink, there is not a depth but grace goes deeper.”

ALFRED EDERSHEIM