Save Me, O God

                                                                         Psalm 69:1-15

 

July 5, 2022

 

Save Me, O God

“Save me, O God!  For the waters have come up to my neck.   I sink in deep mire,
where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me.   I am weary with my crying out; my throat is parched.  My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.   More in number than the hairs of my head are those who hate me without cause; mighty are those who would destroy me, those who attack me with lies.  What I did not steal must I now restore?  O God, you know my folly; the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you.  Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me, O Lord God of hosts; let not those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me, O God of Israel.

For it is for your sake that I have borne reproach, that dishonor has covered my face.  I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother's sons.  For zeal for Your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me.  When I wept and humbled my soul with fasting, it became my reproach.  When I made sackcloth my clothing, I became a byword to them. I am the talk of those who sit in the gate, and the drunkards make songs about me.   But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord.  At an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of your steadfast love answer me in your saving faithfulness.   Deliver me from sinking in the mire; let me be delivered from my enemies and from the deep waters.  Let not the flood sweep over me, or the deep swallow me up, or the pit close its mouth over me.”

 

Save me I cried out to the two guys hunting ducks in the salt flats in Corpus Christi, they were on dry land but I had for some reason gone out into the water and found the deep mire David is referring to.  It seemed like a lifetime before they found a long tree branch and held it out to me.  Much later in my life, I found myself in the deep mire of sin, I got caught in one of the devil’s traps and I was sinking in the mire of sin and cried out to the Lord as David had done when he was under attack.  I also found at this time men who I needed to give me counsel, I became a reproach to, and only one man called me to offer help.  His name was Micky Johnson, and this is what he said to me; Bob, I disagree with all that you are doing but, I am here for you, Bob I love you, and I want to help you.  I was about to tell him what he could do when, He said Bob, I love you, and I want to help, I had no defense, for a man who knew as I did that I was in the wrong, but that he had the love of Jesus in his heart to stand with me and look for the stick that was needed to get me out of the deep mire of sin that was about to cover me.

 

From the Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice