I Need You Lord (Psalm 30)

We don’t know the exact time, but it could have been around the same time in his life that is referred to in 1 Chronicles 21 where David counts his fighting men and the LORD is displeased with him.

Why was it such a big deal to count his fighting men?
It reveals David’s lack of faith in God. By counting his fighting men, he was really trying to figure out if they would win the battle or not instead of trusting God to give him the victory with whatever men he had. David’s disobedience resulted in 70,000 people dying from disease.

What we do know is that David wrote Psalm 30,

• He had a serious health problem that almost cost him his life.
• He was so sick he thought he was going to die. His illness took a toll on him physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
• He had reached a new low in life and both laments his situation and praises God for being with him.
  

David didn’t just complain about his illness either,
he cried out to God about several other crisis in the same Psalm.

“I will exalt you, Lord,
for you lifted me out of the depths
and did not let my enemies gloat over me.
Lord my God, I called to you for help,
and you healed me.
You, Lord, brought me up from the realm of the dead;
you spared me from going down to the pit.”
Psalm 30:1-3

When you cry out to God is it from the depths of your heart or does it just roll off your tongue?

God wants to see our heart when we cry out to him.

When you cry out to God, its OK to actually feel and show emotion.
Lift your hands, raise your head, seek Him with your heart.

Here David cries out to God with emotion praising Him for his healing and sparing his life from his enemies.
You should do the same when you cry out to God.

“Sing the praises of the Lord, you his faithful people;
praise his holy name.
For his anger lasts only a moment,
but his favor lasts a lifetime;
weeping may stay for the night,
but rejoicing comes in the morning.”
Psalm 30:4-5

It doesn’t matter what situation you are sinking in right now.
You may feel helpless and hopeless, destitute and destroyed, but once you add God to your situation, everything changes.

God + Any Situation = Hope

The bigger the problem, the louder the praise.
When you have nothing, you turn to God for everything.

What is your situation? Have you added God to it?
If you have, then there is hope.

Having hope means you fully believe that God is with you.
Your situation is not beyond his abilities to bring a resolution or comfort. He is present with you and will not abandon you no matter what. Cry out to Him because He loves you and is with you.

“When I felt secure, I said,
“I will never be shaken.”
“Lord, when you favored me,
you made my royal mountain stand firm;…”
Psalm 30:6-7

Complacency can kill your faith.
When you get complacent, you no longer depend on God like you did when you had nothing, when you were broke, or needed something from Him.

How do you not grow complacent?

• Stay active in your faith.
• Attend worship services with other like-minded people.
• Serve others.
• Use your spiritual gift for the glory of God.
• Read your bible, stay connected to Christ in prayer.
• Talk to God honestly and openly.
• By keeping your mind on Christ it will keep you from getting complacent.
  

“…but when you hid your face,
I was dismayed.
To you, Lord, I called;
to the Lord I cried for mercy:
“What is gained if I am silenced,
if I go down to the pit?
Will the dust praise you?
Will it proclaim your faithfulness?
Hear, Lord, and be merciful to me;
Lord, be my help.”
Psalm 30:7b-10

David’s self confidence was destroyed when he fell ill.
His self-confidence was destroyed when he knew he had disobeyed God by counting his men. His arrogance cost the lives of 70,000 people and almost took his own.

David felt like God was hiding his presence from him.

Have you ever felt that way?
Right when you need God the most he goes silent. Instead of feeling close and knowing He is near you feel all alone.

When you feel alone, you need to know that you are not.
If you feel alone, you need to learn how to wait on God. Waiting on God involves learning to lay our questions before him. It means that there is something better than knowing all the answers: knowing and trusting the only One who does know and will never abandon us.

Trusting God when we don’t hear him leads us into a deeper faith.
If your faith has never been tested in a trial then it probably isn’t very strong. Token faith will not survive the testing that comes with the darkness of the soul. When we think God is silent or absent, God may show us that our faith is false or superficial.

Once our faith falls apart, we can learn to rebuild it on the rock, on God’s promises.

What we interpret to be silence may actually be our inability or our unwillingness, to hear him.
God speaks not only through his word, but also through his world and your circumstances. When my heart is heavy, sometimes I just need to walk my dogs and refocus on who God is and all He has done.

What to do when you don’t sense the presence of God

1. Pray

Keep talking to the LORD in prayer. When the going gets tough, get on your knees and seek the ways of God. Petition Him, share with Him, ask Him to lead you and guide you. Come back to the throne of grace again and again even when you don’t feel God’s presence. Faith isn’t always about a feeling, just pray and keep talking to God. He is present. Pray for a breakthrough, pray for Him to answer you, get real and stay real with your heavenly Father.

2. Worship
There is something about worship that helps us to connect with our creator. When you worship you are giving God all the glory for who He is. When times get tough, crank up that worship music. Cry out to God in worship. Sing His praises, this is what David did and what you and I can do as well.

3. Seek Him in His Word
Stay in God’s Word. The more you understand God’s Word, the more clearly you will see his heart in his responses to biblical people and their situation. God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Claim the promises of God that you find in His Word in your life. Get into God’s Word. I am convinced that if believers spent 15 minutes a day reading God’s Word, they would see a 100% improvement in their ability to discern the will of God in their life. You want to know God’s will? Learn His Word.

4. Share with a trusted friend who will seek the will of God with you
We all need one another in life. When you are in a situation, seek the wisdom of a trusted friend. Just telling someone about your travails will ease your own burden because they will be praying for you and caring about you.

5. Look back on what He has already done for you
One confidence builder is to look back on see how God has provided for you in the past. Look back to see when and how he showed up. Look back at those spiritual markers in your life when God provided a way when there was no way. God didn’t bring you to this point to abandon you.

6. Just keep showing up
It is tempting to quit, to walk away from God, or to pout like a little child. Don’t do it, keep showing up. Keep leaning in. Keep the faith and keep trusting God even when He seems silent. Show up at church. Show up to your small group. Show up to your recover group. Just keep showing up.

We want God to reveal himself in clear ways yet that isn’t what God does.
God often whispers what’s next and affirms that he is near. The problem is that whispers are not easy to hear especially with all the noise constantly roaring around us.

If you cannot hear God than you need to become a better listener.
Take that big issue and work on one small piece of it. Trust God day by day and hour by hour if needed. Eventually, God will whisper to you, He will comfort you, He will bring someone into your life at the exact right moment.

Pray
Worship
Seek Him in His word
Share your situation with a trusted friend
Look back on what He has done for you
Keep showing up

By taking these six actions, you will learn how to listen and in doing so, you will know how to respond.

Your response may be
- to wait
- to move
- to stop or start

that is between you and God.
Ultimately God will turn your wailing into dancing.

“You turned my wailing into dancing;
you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent.
Lord my God, I will praise you forever.”
Psalm 30:11-12

Psalm 30 is filled with opposites and reversals: low and high, anger and favor, a moment and a lifetime, night and morning, wailing and dancing, sackcloth and joy, silence and song.

It reminds us all that God loves reversing fortunes.
What God did for David in his life, He will do in yours.

Text “psalm” to 94000 to get text prompts and join the Psalm reading plan that we have curated especially for this series.