Psalm 38:9 - May 1, 2009

Ps 38:9 "All my longings lie open before you, O Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you." NIV

The struggle against personal sin and the longings of the heart are often deeply intertwined. For many people the sins that we fall into in our lives are a form of comfort to pacify the cry of the unfulfilled longings that are deep within us. Hopes that have not been fulfilled, desires that are delayed, and dreams that we are holding on to create a unique pressure upon our souls. Prov 13:12 paints a powerful picture of the force of hopes and longings upon our hearts; “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” Many times we hover on the edge between heart sickness and longings fulfilled as we try to endure until the time of fulfillment. It is in the midst of this tension, when the pain of heartsickness at times can begin to rise up and challenge our faith that the voice of other comforts begins to shout and offer us an alternative path to ease the pain. The heart encounters a choice between believing, rejecting the hope, or distracting ourselves from the pressure through means of false comforts and wrong conclusions. In these cases we tell ourselves that our suffering has somehow earned us the privilege of compromise, but compromise is not the answer.
David has known these pressures. He gave his life to serving King Saul only to be persecuted and driven away. His friends counsel him on two occasions to murder the king when opportunity arises. David is a worshipper who was called by a prophetic word to be king. The longing that filled his heart after that divine encounter was not the fruit of his selfish ambition. It was the fruit of a divine purpose birthed in his spirit through a prophetic word. And yet it was the source of a longing that for years went unfulfilled and in many cases his life seemed to go in the opposite direction. He felt the pressure of an unfulfilled word burning in him as choices to find false comfort through compromise warred against his heart.
Throughout these trials David found strength in his intimacy with God. As Psalm 38:9 reveals about David’s understanding of this season of his life, he knew that every longing that burned inside him stood open before the Lord. David knew the sighs that come from a heart that has long awaited the fulfillment of an inner desire. Whether the sighs that spring from a longing for more of God, the sighs of disappointment from delayed hopes or the sighs of a promise unfulfilled David knew that the heart of God was there with him in those times. He had a clear revelation of God’s intimate awareness of even the deepest movements of his heart. This one verse is a powerful insight into the depths of God’s compassionate awareness of the issues of our lives. Not only does he know your circumstance, He knows your pain, He knows your heart cries, He understands every wordless sigh that gives expression to something so deep inside of you that there are no words to explain it. He wants to come and fellowship with us in the midst of our heart’s cry. He knows and most of all He cares! God needs no explanation!
He just needs an open heart!