Pastor Fredo Ramos: We continue praying the Psalms, we come today to Psalm 61. David writes, oh, God, listen to my cry. Hear my prayer. From the ends of the earth, I cry to you for help. When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the towering rock of safety for you are my safe refuge, a fortress where my enemies cannot reach me.
Let me live forever in your sanctuary safe beneath the shelter of your wings. For you have heard my vows, oh god. You have given me an inheritance reserved for those who fear your name. Add many years to the life of the king. May his years span the generations.
May he reign under God's protection forever. May your unfailing love and faithfulness watch over him. Then I will sing praises to your name forever as I fulfill my vows each day. David begins by way of reflection in this Psalm for, cry, as he normally does. God listened to my cry.
What I wanna draw our attention to there in verse two is when he says, I cry to you for help when my heart is overwhelmed, when my heart is overwhelmed. As you step into your day today, I would imagine there are plenty of things that might overwhelm your heart, overwhelm your ability to be yourself, to be stable, to see God at work in your life. So listen to just the way that David piles on these descriptions and pictures of how he wants God to care for him. He says, lead me to the rock that is higher than I or to the towering rock of safety. In other words, lead me to a place that is a stable foundation where I can look out.
He says, you are a refuge for me. He then describes him as a fortress, a tower, a place where your enemies can't get. He then says in verse four, a sanctuary, a place of intimacy and worship, and then he says, in the shelter of your wings, he almost describes God's care as that of a mother bird, something that Jesus actually alludes to in Luke 13. And so I just love that in the light of David feeling overwhelmed, he overwhelms himself with pictures of God and the way that God desires to care. And so, by way of prayer, Jesus, we hear you inviting us now to face the ways that we feel overwhelmed with the overwhelming glory of who you are.
You are, in fact, the the person who desires to shelter us in your wings. And, God, I pray that as we get a vision of you today, that you would lead us to a rock that is higher than I, a towering rock of stability so that we might stand on stable ground and look out into the world. And as verse six says, God, we do pray that you would protect our life. That today as we go about our relationships, our work, that you would protect us. In the name of Jesus we pray.
Amen.