Joel M Bradshaw

1O LORD, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath!
2For your arrows have sunk into me, and your hand has come down on me…

21Do not forsake me, O LORD! O my God, be not far from me!
22Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation!–Psalm 38

Psalm 38 was a rough time for David. David’s enemies were chasing him around with real arrows, and David pictured God with a quiver of his own.

One side of David’s prayer tension is the sovereign hand of God. David interpreted his hardship as God’s displeasure with him. That as enemies pursued him, he saw God at work disciplining him. This perspective is Biblical. Proverbs 3 (quoted in Hebrews 12)…

11My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline, and do not resent his rebuke, 12because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.

This perspective brings humility. It asks of God what is his expecting you learn during your season.

The second side of the prayer tension is that God is David’s only hope. That God would deliver and save David in his time of hopelessness.

This perspective brings dependance upon God. Reaching out with hope in your time of hopelessness. Acknowledging that you need a Savior, and you are not it.

I felt this tension in the early days of my MS. I had been experiencing scary symptoms and had just received an official diagnosis. Everyone around me was shocked.

My earliest moments with God on this leg of the journey were the second part of this devotional. I depended upon God. I saw him as my only hope. I prayed for deliverance and healing.

As the decades progressed, I felt the first part of the tension. That God was using this to discipline me. What was God expecting me to learn through this as he disciplined me as his son?

It was God’s sovereign plan for me to have MS, for me to know weakness, brokenness, and suffering. God has taught me great faith and trust. My greatest strength is my dependance upon him. He is my hope, even though I don’t pray as much now for deliverance as I do for endurance and to see my story used for His glory.

David’s tension was that as he suffered under the sovereign plan of God and was expected not only to turn to God for salvation, but learn what God was teaching him. Discipline sometimes hurts, but it makes Godly disciples out of sons. Learn what God is teaching you during this season. Trust and depend upon him. See him as your exclusive hope.–JMB