I am reading Psalm 69 this morning and I think that I am very sensitive to the feelings that David the psalmist is having. let me share a few verses:

1 Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck. 2 I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me. 3 I am weary with my crying out; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.

Feelings of being overwhelmed don’t come upon my heart very often but when they do my heart cries out much to the same effect as David.  Having a sinking feeling, or at least an attitude of “how am I going to get out of this?” David is so raw and angry throughout this Psalm.  A little further in the passage (verse 28) he writes, “Let them (his enemies) be blotted out of the book of the living.” This is unreal!  Can you say that out loud?  I mean I have been angry at people (really more frustrated) but I have never wanted anyone to die!  David asks God to not count these people among the righteous!

Psalms have always been challenging and reassuring to me in my walk with Christ.  For example, David asks God to take these people out and then says in verse 19, “you know my reproach, and my shame and my dishonor, my foes are all known to you.”  Basically he is saying, “God, you know all of my faults and failures.  You know everyone’s faults and failures.”  Then David moves on to seeking only God.  I love how when David tells the truth he always ends up worshiping God for who He is and what he is doing (even though David may not like it!).

Today I want to live verses 29-30

29
But I am afflicted and in pain; let your salvation, O God, set me on high!

30
I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify him with thanksgiving.
I am always learning that no matter what my circumstances are I must magnify the Lord (to make Him more and me less). Magnification works that way.  When dialing in a microscope to magnify one particular part of a human cell, as an example, we are going to have to make something else out of focus.  David is making God bigger which will automatically make him smaller.  God I want you to be big so that I can be small!  Jesus, help me to magnify you in my life today!