Rest for the Weary Soul

There are times when the soul is weary. Our minds are tired and our hearts are bruised. It is at such a time that people who feel that life has dealt cruelly with them have gone to the Psalms.

They have read the experiences of the psalmists and find that these men have been through something very similar. And somehow that fact, in and of itself, helps and strengthens them. They feel that they are not alone, and that what is happening to them is not unusual.

They begin to realize the truth of Paul’s comforting words “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man” (1 Corinthians 10:13) and that very realization alone enables them to take courage and to be renewed in their faith. The Book of Psalms is of inestimable value in this respect.

There are many features about the Psalms which might detain us. The thing I want to mention especially is the remarkable honesty with which the authors tell the truth about themselves. That is the great value of the Psalms.

I know of nothing in the spiritual life more discouraging than to meet the kind of person who seems to give the impression that he is always walking on the mountain top. That is certainly not true in the Bible. The Bible tells us these men knew what it was to be cast down and to be in sore and grievous trouble.

Many a saint in his pilgrimage has thanked God for the honesty of the psalmists. They do not put up an ideal teaching which was not true in their own lives. Perfectionist teachings are never true. They are not true to the experience of the people who teach them, for we know that they are fallible creatures like the rest of us.

Thank God the psalmists do not do that. They tell us the plain truth about themselves. They tell us the plain truth about what has happened to them because they want to glorify God.

~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones