OUT OF THE DEPTHS 1

Have you read Psalm 130 recently? Open your Bible now, or the next chance you get, and read this powerful psalm. It begins, Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!

You have probably cried out to the Lord out of the depths of trouble or heart ache. We just received an e-mail from a close friend whose cancer has made a turn for the worse. We cried out with her in desperate prayer. Some of our most powerful praying springs from the depths of trouble.

Troubles often humble our hearts before God. The next stanza of the psalm begins,

If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?

But nothing increases the confidence of our faith like praying from the depths. The next verse concludes,

But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.

And our hope is made strong as we pray in times when there seems to be no immediate hope. The psalm confirms,

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
 my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning.

And such prayers become a powerful testimony. Nothing calls others to join us in prayer like praying out of the depths. The psalm concludes with a call for the people of God to put their hope in the Lord. Crying out to God in trouble will call others to cry out to Him as well.