The Real Cure

Have you ever prayed like this?

O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am!
Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you.
Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!  Surely a man goes about as a shadow!
Surely for nothing they are in turmoil; man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather.
--Psalm 39:4-6

Words like that don't often constitute my morning prayer.  "God, remind me of how short my life is.  Amen."  Why would someone pray for a reminder like that?

When he spoke these words, David was in a time of personal trial, physically and spiritually.  But in this particular trial, his prayer wasn't "comfort me, God," but "humble me."

God's prescription for David's trial was a humble perspective.

So often when we face disappointment, our prayer is that we get what we want.  We identify the sadness we feel as being caused by something we wanted that we didn't get, so we identify the cure as getting that thing back, or gaining it for the first time.  But our diagnosis, like all earthly thinking, is only skin deep.  David saw past this.  He saw that all of his "getting" was ultimately futile.  His possessions wouldn't last long, and were easily lost--and so was the happiness they provided.  So instead of trying to remedy his disappointment with more getting, he decided to remedy his attitude that thought getting was the answer.

Oh that we would be quicker to come to this point!  How many trials, how many disappointments does it take for us to realize that getting what we want will not make us happy?  The very frequency of these disappointments ought to remind us that more are coming.  We will never be free from loss--not on this side of heaven.  So all we can do is pray, as David, that we will be freed from a mindset in which gain is god and loss is devastation.

David was disappointed, and he refused to hope in an earthly remedy.  That hope, he knew, was pointless.  So at the point of emptiness, he prayed this:

"And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?"
Not to get back what I lost.

"My hope is in You.
Deliver me from all my transgressions."
They, not the loss, are my real trial.

"Do not make me the scorn of the fool!
I am mute; I do not open my mouth,
for it is You who have done it."
I won't instruct You to do what I think will make me happy.
--Psalm 39:7-9


I want to respond to pain the way that David did here.  That earthly blessing didn't, doesn't, wouldn't make me happy.  God did, does, and will.  Remind me, Father, of my transience and how short-lived all earthly blessings are.  And be the one thing I truly hope in.