Preserve Me, O God

 

Last night at prayer meeting, Psalm 16:1 kept floating around in my mind.  

Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I put my trust. - Psalm 16:1

We don’t really talk like that anymore. I can’t even remember the last time I heard somebody pray, “Lord, preserve me.”

We say, “Help me.”
“Protect me.”
“Get me through this.”
“Lord, I don’t know what to do.”

And sometimes, we might even just say, “Jesus, HELP!”

But preserve me says something a little different.  I looked it up to get a real definite meaning. 

It means keep me.
Guard me.
Hold me together.
Don’t let what I’m walking through destroy what You’re doing in me.

And THAT is certainly a prayer that I understand.

I don't necessarily ask God to immediately remove me from something...sometimes I just need Him to keep me while I’m in it.

Keep my mind when my thoughts want to run in twelve different directions.
Keep my heart when I’m hurt.
Keep my mouth when I really, really have something I could say. (Lord, You KNOW. 😂)
Keep me from reacting out of emotion.
Keep me from making permanent decisions because of temporary feelings.
Keep me from becoming bitter because somebody hurt me.
Keep me from letting disappointment change the way I see You.

Preserve me, O God.

David tells us why he can pray that way, “…for in thee do I put my trust.”

David didn't say that because he understood what God was doing or because he had a five-step plan for getting himself out of whatever mess he was in.

No, his reason was simply that he trusted God.

I think sometimes we make trusting God far more complicated than it has to be, I know I have a tendency to do that.  Trust doesn’t mean I understand or that I'm not scared. It doesn't mean that I never have questions or that I LIKE what's happening.

Sometimes....trust sounds exactly like Psalm 16:1.

“God, I need You to keep me because I have decided to put this in Your hands!”

There have been plenty of times in my life when I wanted God to change the situation, and instead, He changed something in me while I was walking through it. 

I wanted the door opened....He gave me patience while it stayed closed.

I wanted an explanation....He taught me to trust Him without one.

I wanted something fixed immediately....He kept me while I waited.

And looking back, I can see that being preserved was sometimes the miracle! I made it through without losing my faith. I made it through things I was absolutely convinced would break me.  I survived days that I didn't know how I was going to survive!

There were prayers I couldn't even put into sentences, and somehow.....God STILL knew exactly what I was saying.

He kept me!

That doesn’t mean I came through everything untouched. Some things left some pretty hefty marks. Some seasons change everything about you and some losses become part of your story forever.

But there's a difference between being changed by something and being destroyed by it.
One thing I know for certain is that God knows how to preserve His people! 

Maybe today you don’t need a complicated prayer either? Maybe you don’t even know exactly what to ask God to do about the situation you're facing? 

You just know you're tired, you’re frustrated, you've been waiting.  You're hurting, you’re trying not to make decisions based on what you feel today, and you're doing your best to trust God when you cannot see what He's doing.

Then borrow David’s prayer!

Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I put my trust.

Keep me, Lord!
Keep my heart right and my mind steady! 
Keep my faith anchored!
Keep me from becoming somebody I don't want to become because of what I've been through!

Keep me close to You!

And while I’m waiting for You to change what I cannot change…..preserve me.

Because my trust is STILL in You!