“He heard my Cry for mercy” pt. 1
Matias Uribe - March 10th, 2024
It has now been a full 24 hours since we arrived back in the States and we are still working on processing just how much the Lord worked on us, the country, and its people in the 7 days we were there. We laughed, we cried, we sowed, and we reaped. In less than a week we were constantly reminded of God’s hand over us and this trip which is why now reading what I am writing makes this specific devo so special to my heart. It was Monday night when the Lord first put this on my heart to write down, for context, I haven’t been able to leave the Psalms (as a poet myself, what an ironic blessing) when it comes to what scripture comes to my heart to read from the Lord but this was the first full night we had in Tierra Bomba and everything was yet to come.
With context out of the way let’s dive into both the title and the message for this Devo. We find ourselves in Psalm 116 (please read and come back) ((welcome back)) reading about the psalmist who is arduously struggling with death but relies on the Lord in it all. He begins by saying “I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy. (v. 1 NIV).” We are left to wonder well what exactly is he crying out for? He tells us his outcry as “the cords of death entangled me, the anguish of the grave came over me; I was overcome by distress and sorrow (v. 3 NIV)” which is such a gut-wrenching statement because truthfully we all deal with that as some certain stage of our life. However, he wholeheartedly turns to the Lord and is overcome by comfort and joy. Verse 7 stands out to me as the psalmist states, “Return to rest, my soul, for the LORD has been good to you.” How incredible conviction and power the psalmists write about the goodness of God and not just that but he orders his soul to rest in Him as well. The next couple of verses deal with how the psalmist resolves this entanglement with death and finds purpose in living. Verses 8 and 9 state clearly that his purpose is to live because he has been delivered from death into life and in that deliverance honor God and tell others the good news of what He has done. Something we must do as well, and on a missions trip how much more clear could the message be? Now this is where it starts to get tricky, in verses 15 & 16 he says one of the wildest statements a reader can read especially on missions, “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his faithful servants. Truly I am your servant, LORD; I serve you just as my mother did; you have freed me from my chains.” Huh? Is death not the very thing that had him entangled and overwhelmed in the first place? Why the change of heart? That is when the Lord reminded me of verse 7 - “Return to rest, my soul, for the LORD has been good to you.” He didn’t need to think of death as a struggle but a purpose, we see the psalmist realize that the very thing that captured him is now the source of his freedom.
I realize I made this very long so there will be a part 2 because there is a whole ‘nother portion of this verse I want to talk about that the Lord was revealing while speaking to a friend about this.
Prayers
We start the 2nd half of the semester and need prayer on finishing strong
The desire to be back in Colombia is deep, while good we may miss what the Lord has for us back in the States if we focus on what we had. Prayer on being able to focus on the present and have what we learned as a reminder
Praises
The Lord showed His loving hand on everything we did and was present everywhere we went. We were simply witnesses to what the Lord was already doing before we got there.
