“I am worn out from sobbing. All night I flood my bed with weeping, drenching it with my tears. My vision is blurred by grief; my eyes are worn out because of all my enemies.”

Psalm 6:6-7

Blurred Vision

Do you ever lie in bed at night wrestling with your thoughts? I reckon we all do at some time or another. Even when we can keep those fearful or anxious thoughts at bay throughout the light of day, somehow they seem magnified in the darkness.

“I am worn out from sobbing.” At the start of Psalm 6 we find King David, worn out from weeping into his pillow. The trial he faced at the time had three components to it: David felt God was angry with him. He felt distant from God and lacked a sense of God’s presence. And (perhaps because of the first 2), David couldn’t sleep. All this weeping and wrestling with his thoughts left him exhausted.

“My vision is blurred by grief, my eyes are worn out because of all my enemies.” David’s spiritual vision, usually sharp, had become unfocused — blurred — because he had allowed his heart to be overwhelmed by his thoughts. When a person succumbs to despair, when anxious thoughts set in and get a grip on the heart, it’s very difficult to focus on anything else. It can seem as though you are “surrounded by your ‘enemies.”

David frequently had enemies; ones with murder on their minds, and hatred in their hearts. We may not face the same sort of enemies, but we do face many ‘forces’ in the world that have the potential to ruin us economically, emotionally, physically and spiritually.

How do we refocus the “eyes of our hearts,” when our problems loom so large that they are all we see? If we read a little bit further in the Psalm, we see how David did so.

A HEART REFOCUS:

In verse 8 we see a sudden change in tone. It’s as though his focus has shifted. No longer is he consumed by his anxiety. His gaze shifts to the LORD. The ‘lens’ of his heart turns until it refocusses and David sees clearly again. And as this happens, he finds the strength to command his enemies (in this case perhaps his own fearful thoughts) to get away from him.

The realisation has dawned on David that the LORD has heard the cries of his heart.

“Go away, all you who do evil, for the Lord has heard my weeping.”

Psalm 6:8

Crying and weeping are natural, God given responses and God sees our tears and is moved with compassion for us. Our tears have a ‘voice.’ Sometimes, in the presence of God, there are just no words — all you can do is weep, whether from sadness, repentance or joy. Or because you simply can’t find words and your heart is so full that it overflows in tears.

We can keep our hearts focused when we direct our tears towards the LORD, rather than towards our problems — allowing ourselves to become overwhelmed by them. Fear, doubt, unbelief and anxiety have no choice but to bow at the name of Jesus.

LIQUID PRAYERS:

God is deeply moved by his children’s tears. Spurgeon summed this up very eloquently:

“Is it not sweet to believe that our tears are understood even when words fail! Let us learn to think of tears as liquid prayers.”

C.H. Spurgeon

Our tears are very precious to God. Psalm 56 says:

“You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.”

Psalm 56:8

GOD OUR HOPE!

We will always have trials in this life. But we can know this with absolute certainty: God says,

“I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.”

Hebrews‬ ‭13:5‬ ‭

‭‭If you are presently facing difficult a time in life, remember this promise, and hold onto it:

“Those who trust in the Lord are as secure as Mount Zion; they will not be defeated but will endure forever. Just as the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people, both now and forever.”

Psalm‬ ‭125:1-2‬ ‭

‭‭No matter what else goes on around you, the presence of God surrounds you, to comfort, strengthen and uphold you. He hears every prayer, even the ‘liquid ones’ that have no words, and in Christ, you are unshakable!

Jill 💜