Lift Yourself Up!
"Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturb within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God." Psalms 42:5.

All of us will go through many seasons in life. There are ups and downs in this journey of life. Today a person might be experiencing a smooth cycle of life but few days later the same person might go through a challenging moment. It is normal if you are feeling down and sad during stormy seasons but you should not stay or remain in that condition for a long time. Why? God wants us to live a life by faith and move on in this life. By saying this, I do not mean to give a picture of God as someone that doesn't understand our feelings and hard times. He is full of compassion and He understand us more than we understand ourselves. He wants us to trust Him and by faith He wants you and me to step into His plans.

We can learn many godly principle from King David in the Bible. He is a man who experienced God's touch in his life, favor, mercy, forgiveness, supernatural breakthrough and victory in his life. Like us, he too faced many different kinds of seasons in life. Consider the feelings of the psalmist when he says, "Why are you downcast, O my soul?" His soul is downcast because the storms of life swept over him. Probably he has no strength to face the hard times that he was facing at that moment. He was at the lowest point of his life and he was emotionally affected and that was the reason he continued asking the following question to himself, "Why so disturb within me?"

Does this sound familiar to your soul? Have you ever experienced these feelings? Have you ever been overcome by these emotions? The psalmist is not speaking from his ivory tower, declaring to us all what we ought to do. Rather, the psalmist is speaking from experience and is teaching us by telling us about his life and how he got through his difficulties. Life is not easy when we feel overwhelmed by many storms. Life is hard when we are emotionally down and being struck down by hard times. What should we do in the midst of these feelings?

Lift yourself up! Look at what the psalmist says in the same verse, "Put your hope in God." The psalmist is reminding himself to put his hope and trust in the Lord, regardless of what he was going through. When we are at the end of the road and things do not seem to be working out the way we expected, it is time to repeatedly tell ourselves to put our trust in God. In my own life, every time I faced hard times, I learned to tell and confess something like this repeatedly, "Lord, I trust in You". Every time I keep saying that phase I found that a new strength will rise up from the inside of me. One thing is for sure, when you put your trust in Him, He will never disappoint you.

Dearest, God has called us to pick ourselves up in times of trouble. I believe this is the point of the thrice repeated refrain "Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God." To get through hard times, we need God. While we wait for God, we cannot allow our emotions to spin out of control and rule our lives. Nor should we sit back and expect everyone to come rushing to our aid. We are to pull ourselves up and endure hardship through His strength. Lift yourself up again!

Today's Prayer,
Dear Heavenly Father, I thank You for Your faithfulness. Nothing in this life could ever compare to You. Oh my mighty God, teach me to put my hope and my security in You alone and have Your ways in me. For You alone are my solution and refuge in times of trouble. Lord, I trust in You. In Jesus' Name. Amen.