PSALMS 4

IN OUR WEAKNESS Ps.4:1

WE’RE BEGGING

Hear us when we call, O God of our righteousness:

Lord, we trust that You’re listening

We’re full of doubts and worries

Deepen our confidence in You

You, are our Defender

You, are our Advocate

O Lord, please answer our prayer

O Lord, please be our shield

O Lord, please be our protector

O Lord, please be our provider

WE PLEAD FOR YOUR BLESSING

You have enlarged us when we are in distress

In pressure and stress You enlarge and enable us

In tight places You give us room

Now we’re in trouble again:

Give us grace! hear us!

Give us a firm confidence in You

Put joy in our heart

Put joy in our mind and life

In the past You’ve helped us out in more than one tight spot

We know O Lord, when we Pray that we transfer the authority

of our problems To You

WE GIVE OUR BURDENS TO YOU

have mercy on us hear our prayer

Have mercy on us

Please answer our prayer

Have mercy on us again, and again and again O God

and hear our prayer over and over and over!

OPEN OUR EARS TO YOUR WARNINGS Ps.4:2

KEEP OTHERS FROM DISHONORING US

O you sons of men, how long will you turn our glory into shame?

Give us freedom from insults,

Use others scorn as a blessing

Turn our curses into approvals

Turn our sorrows into joys

Turn our ashes into beauty

Turn our weakness into strength

Turn our shaming into glory

Cause the collapse of all around us to drive us to Your throne of Grace

Give us Your solutions

Give us Your victories

Give us Your provisions in all things

Lead us to the reality of Christ in us

When others put us down let us rest in Your Spirit life within us

We cry after Your grace

Give us freedom from lingering regrets

Give us freedom from raging resentments

Give us freedom from people-pleasing

Enable our response to all the criticizing rabble

Grace us in creatively to put up with any and all scorn

To our enemies we say

How long are you going to drag our good name through the mud?

Stabilize us O Lord

WHEN OTHERS DEVALUE US

how long will you love vanity

How long will you lust after lies?

Keep us from vanity and lies

How long are you going to cling to a handful of emptiness?

Deliver us from emptiness and vanity

WHEN OTHERS ARE DISHONEST WITH US

How long are you going to seek after lying? Selah.

Fill us always with truth

How long will you live crazed by illusion?

Deliver us from those crazed by illusion

How long are you going to gorge yourself on a banquet of lies?    

Deliver us from those who feast on lies at the expense of our reputation

Deliver us from all disillusion

Bring us into Your banqueting table and spread a banner of love over us

LEAD US IN YOUR WONDER PS.4:3

GOD IS SELECTIVE   

But know that the Lord has set apart all that are godly for Himself

Make us always feel Your presence

Surround our feelings in Your approving acceptance

Make us sure of this:

We belong to You

We matter to You

We’re clean in Your sight

Give us 3 dimensional clarity in how

You picked us God!

You treasure us Lord Jesus  

Keep us in Your love as we love You with all our heart

GOD IS SENSITIVE  PS.4:3

the Lord will hear when we call to Him

Give us surround sound sensation in how You listen the split second we call to You

Relax us in the fact that You’ll hear our cry

Lead us in the reality that You’re always involved in every detail of

our life and You’ll rescue us!    

Guide us to Your truth as our moment by moment solution

THE WORSHIP WE MUST CONSIDER

PS. 4:4-5   

Stand in awe and sin not

Set an angelic sentinel at the entrance to our mind

Put a paddle lock on our mouth

Let us leave our Complaints with You

Keep us from lashing out at others

Deliver us from crass reactions

Deliver us from all sarcastic pressure release impropriety

Deliver us from cheap cynicism

Fill us with gracious expressions

Enable us to praise You constantly

Make our enemies tremble with fear, and turn them from their wicked ways

Radically adjust our thinking

By helping us to realize

it’s not our political enemies

it’s not our community enemies

It’s not the enemies of social depravity

But it’s us.

It’s the enemy within

We’re our worst enemy in our faithlessness

Lead us to rise above the raging battles to the solutions only You can give

Keep us from reacting like Cain with a bludgeoning club

Deliver us from bringing Ishmael’s to birth

WE MUST COMMUNE PS.4:4

commune with your own heart on your bed

Set an Angelic guard around us

Keep us trusting in Your solutions

Keep us depending on Your grace

Keep our mouth shut and prompt our heart do all the talking to You

At night, we use our beds as our own personal think tanks

WE MUST BE CALM

and be still. Selah.

especially in the night watches

Let us build our case before God in constant communion night and day

We wait for Your verdict

We quietly confess our sins  

We openly rejoice in Your forgiveness

WE MUST COOPERATE

Offer the sacrifices of righteousness

Let me offer You pleasing sacrifices and passionate worship

Then, in the light of dawn, we throw ourselves at Your feet,

WE MUST CONFIDE PS.4:5

and put all your trust in the Lord

Keep us from looking back

Keep us from wishing or longing for what is not

Keep us begging for Your mercy

Keep us aggressive in seeking Your solutions in the face of impossibilities

You are our trustworthy God   

You alone have the specific answers

THE WAIL PS.4:6

CONSTANT COMPLAINING   

There be many that say Who will show us any good?

Why is everyone hungry for more?

Prove through our testimony that You Lord provide our daily manna

Prove through Your life more abundant that You are our promised land

Take all the tinsel and fake glitter off the Satanic worldly lies In all the the lustful lifestyles of More, more and More, others seek

Cause a fountain of living waters to flow out of us by Your Spirit

Make us want just more of You

As The godless ask,

What’s real happiness?

Where can I find it?

How much does it cost?”

Make us an exhibition of Spirit filled living

CREATIVE CONDOLENCE

Lord, lift You up the light of Your countenance on us.

Live through our countenance Your smiling face,

Give us the joy of Your presence,

Allow us to be living proof that We have God’s more-than-enough,

Live joy through our old aged ordinariness

Lead us to just smile to ourselves as we bask in the warmth of Your

never-ending love, Lord.

THE WELLSPRING PS.5:7-8

FOUNTAIN OF REFRESHMENT  

OUR CONTENTMENT

You have put gladness in our heart,   

Show us the abundance of every moment and how to bring You glory in every challenge

Deliver us from shopping spree solutions that drown our sorrows in stuff

Show us through time spent with You we find our source of joy

OUR CONTRAST

Prove in musing on Your word that we have more then when the earth dwellers have their corn and their wine increased

That we have more in You Lord Jesus than the wicked gain from winning in the lottery

FIDELITY OF REST

We will both lay us down in peace and sleep

In our restful spirit of a soul kept by You

At day’s end we’re ready for sound sleep

At night we sleep like a rock peacefully tucked in our own bed

FENCE OF RETREAT

for You, Lord, only make us dwell in safety

For you, God, have put our life back together knowing that we have the best Bodyguard in the world!

THE POWER OF PRESSURE

Of the many ironies of faith that confuses our thoughts the principle of pressure and resistance is the greatest

In the physical world where we seek our comfort the external pressures of our life are debilitating

When pressure is applied to an object the item becomes

disfigured

distorted

deflated

damaged

The therapists of our day call these pressures, tension and stress

They tell us this is what causes our worry, our depression, our general imbalance

We seek release from stress by various diversions.  

Anything that calms the inner strain from the surrounding outer stress.  

But the solution is not in diversions but in a person who deals with the root of the issue

In the spiritual world everything is reversed as through pressure You enlarged us

Develop us by faith in You

Deliver us from the fear of pressure destroying us

Lead us to triumph

Keep us from being crushed by Your varied tests and trials

Never let us teeter into tragedy

Ease our inner being by our faith in Jesus

Keep us drawing on Your grace and peace,

Keep us from becoming battered and beaten by the burdens of Life

Give us Spirit inner imbalance

Let us bring our inadequacy to You in exchange for Your adequacy

Spurgeon once said:

I am afraid that all the grace I’ve got

out of my comfortable and easy times

and happy hours might almost lie on

the edge of a penny

But the good that I have received

from my sorrows and pains and

grief’s is altogether incalculable

What do I not owe to the hammer

to the anvil, to the fire to the file?

Affliction is the best bit of furniture

in my house