Pastor's Blog

Seasons of Transformation

Psa. 119:28 – My soul melteth for heaviness (KJV)

Here we discover a precondition for deliverance. What has happened within is the result of what has been going on without. Disappointing people and circumstances have produced weightiness in the heart of the psalmist that has brought him to the brink of emotional collapse. Like a block of steel being transformed from a solid into a liquid by the intense heat of the furnace, the psalmist’s identity is being reshaped by the furnace of life. The sturdiness of his inner man is being so thoroughly dissolved that life is beginning to lose its shape. Stability has given way to instability, certainty to uncertainty, security to insecurity. The softening effect of life’s hard spots has weakened his resilience.

The psalmist has entered into a season of transformation. There are various seasons in the lives of believers. A farmer doesn’t react to the seasons. He respects them and responds to them. The psalmist’s prayer is a response to a season in his life. The seed of action has produced a harvest of consequence. The impact of these consequences has weakened his spirit. Life’s weightiness has not always had such a devastating effect upon his inner man. There have been seasons in which he has been able to stand up against threatening winds. For the most part he has held up under life’s load. Like a farmer who has planted more than he can harvest, disappointments have arrived faster than the psalmist was able to dispatch them.

But we find encouragement as we observe the psalmist’s agony of soul and participate with him in his weariness of spirit. For he is not unaware of his condition and understands that his condition is a precondition for deliverance. Just as there has been a harvest of circumstance, there will be a harvest of faith. The time of reaping in the flesh is a time for sowing in the spirit. When we reap the consequences of our actions, our faith is challenged to sow the seed of faith. In crying out to the Lord over the dissolution of his soul, the psalmist has shown that he is aware of his season of need. The best news for the psalmist is not that help is on its way, but that he knows where, how, and when to look for help.

The psalmist’s prayers are a believer’s textbook. For the heat of life is continually reshaping us, threatening our identity, undermining our security, softening our ability to take life’s blows. Just as the season of austerity tempts us to despair, there is a season that tempts us to launch out into self-sufficiency, to go it alone. Strength seems inexhaustible, ideas limitless, plans foolproof, dreams attainable. Both extremes should be recognized and avoided. The Lord designed prayer to strengthen the saints’ ability to take life as it is dealt to them. In the psalmist’s words we find prayer working according to specification. If he has any anxiety, it is not that the Lord will not fully deliver but that He will not fully disclose his condition. If he has any fear, it is not that prayer will fail, but that he will fail to pray.