Prayer in Times of Trouble

Psalms 43:1-5 

1 Vindicate me, O God,
And plead my cause against an ungodly nation;
Oh, deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man!

2 For You are the God of my strength;
Why do You cast me off?
Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?

3 Oh, send out Your light and Your truth!
Let them lead me;
Let them bring me to Your holy hill
And to Your tabernacle.

4 Then I will go to the altar of God,
To God my exceeding joy;
And on the harp I will praise You,
O God, my God.

5 Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God;
For I shall yet praise Him,
The help of my countenance and my God.

This psalm is a prayer in troubled times.  Part of it is an echo from the previous psalm as a refrain of trust and reassurance.  The song of prayer opens with a request from God to vindicate, to judge his case and show his innocence against an unrighteous people that the psalmist lives among, ones who strive against him as belonging to the LORD.  These ungodly ones deceive and show no justice, so he pleads with God for divine justice and deliverance.  He exalts God by praise for his strength, yet also is unsure and begs not to be cast aside and not helped.  He was saddened by the enemy’s oppression and therefore prayed this prayer for deliverance.  The spiritual ask was first for God to give light to see by and truth to lean on and live by before others, that the light and truth would lead him in the way he should walk.  The second ask was more of a resulting promise that he would in return follow the illuminating truth to worship God in the temple on the holy hill where God met with His people in sacrifice and service to Him.  The psalmist promised when he arrived there to go straight to the altar to sacrifice with thanksgiving as a spiritual service of worship, just as we are to do in Romans 12:1 as our life-worship of self-sacrifice.  Since God is our exceeding joy, we should imitate the psalmist here in recognition of that truth by singing praise to Him who is our God.  The refrain at the end of this prayer song echoes that of Psalm 42:5, 11, asking himself why he is downtrodden or depressed, why he lets the circumstances of his adversaries take away the peace of God in His soul.  He reminds himself to keep hoping in God who sustains and praise Him for that daily deliverance, that salvation of help in times of need which gladdens his outlook (Hebrews 4:16) because He is his God.  This assurance of salvation in Christ (once for all and daily) is even more certain to us, as we have the whole counsel of God with His coming and the explanations by His apostles to us of these things.  Let us then praise Him for that help of deliverance and find peace in Him (Romans 5:1, 15:13) in times of trouble, hoping in God in Christ for His keeping and care.