In my distress

In my distress I cried to the Lord,
And He heard me. – Psalm 120.1

This world is in distress. Do you have any doubts? Check out your favourite newsfeed and look at the stories there. The uncertainly of the future in 2017 can be a scary and anxious thing.

Not only that, we have our own times of distress. We become distressed over deaths and illnesses and loss of jobs and financial. Sometimes our distress can come suddenly it can knock us off our feet and we can act before we even have time to think. When those distressing events happen to me before the news is even complete my mind goes into ‘fix it’ mode and I can act before I even consider things or pray about it.

The psalmist had is right – ‘in my distress I cried to the Lord’ and when he did that the right thing happened ‘and He heard me.’

Too often my distress comes in the middle of the night and I spend hours fretting and stressing out over them. Instead of wasting that time and putting myself under that emotional I need to learn to do the only logical thing.

Every March I casually read through ‘The Confession’ by Patrick. For part of his life Patrick was a slave caring for sheep. He knew his life was a mess. As he recounts that time he quotes this verse – ‘in my distress I called on the Lord and He heard me.’ God delivered him and used him to carry the gospel of Jesus Christ back to the Irish people.

We are foolish to let distress ruin our lives when we can cry out to the One who is in control