Verse of the Day Devotion:  Psalm 143:10  

“Teach me to do Your will, For You are my God; Let Your good Spirit lead me on level ground.” – Psalm 143:10

David here in this Psalm is asking God to help him.  “Hear my prayer, O LORD, Give ear to my supplications! Answer me in Your faithfulness, in Your righteousness! And do not enter into judgment with Your servant, For in Your sight no man living is righteous.” Psalm 143:1-2.  He starts off by asking God to hear Him, and then follows it with a request not to be judged, knowing that in His sight, no man is righteous, and therefore He is asking for mercy.

After having requested assistance from God, he then gives the reason for his cry for help, which were the afflictions and persecutions by the enemy.  “For the enemy has persecuted my soul; He has crushed my life to the ground; He has made me dwell in dark places, like those who have long been dead. Therefore my spirit is overwhelmed within me; My heart is appalled within me.” Psalm 143:3-4.  David is saying he is covered completely with grief and weighed down with sorrow.  He is overwhelmed by all these trials and He is crying out for help. 

He then says he remembers the times in the past where God came to His people who trusted in Him.  “I remember the days of old; I meditate on all Your doings; I muse on the work of Your hands.” Psalm 143:5.  He then, based on the ways of old mentioned in the previous verse calls out to God to help him.  “I stretch out my hands to You; My soul longs for You, as a parched land. Selah. Answer me quickly, O LORD, my spirit fails; Do not hide Your face from me, Or I will become like those who go down to the pit. Let me hear Your lovingkindness in the morning; For I trust in You; Teach me the way in which I should walk; For to You I lift up my soul. Deliver me, O LORD, from my enemies; I take refuge in You.” Psalm 143:6-9.

Then we see David, in our focus verse, calling out to God, asking Him to teach him His ways.  “Teach me to do Your will, For You are my God; Let Your good Spirit lead me on level ground.” Psalm 143:10.  And then following, “For the sake of Your name, O LORD, revive me. In Your righteousness bring my soul out of trouble. And in Your lovingkindness, cut off my enemies And destroy all those who afflict my soul, For I am Your servant.” Psalm 143:11-12.

We all run into difficult times in our lives, times which we wonder why this is happening, and then crying out to God to help us.  We do not know what to do, and we need His guidance as we go through these times.  David had reached this point and notice what he did.  He asked God to help Him get through it all.  It appears he may have felt his deeds may have been a factor in all these trials where the enemy was weighing him down.   So, David asked the Lord to teach him to do His will, to guide him through these rough times by leading him to level ground, that which is easier to traverse.  David did not tell God what he wanted, but asked God to teach him His ways, for He is God. 

This looks like a good way for us to work through difficult times.  We should get on our knees and ask God to show us the way.  Many times, we will pray like, ‘God, deliver me from this difficulty’.  However, it may be God’s will for us to go through it so that we can learn from Him.  Francis Schaeffer put it this way, and I paraphrase.  ‘Sometimes we pray that God will deliver us from a situation when we should be praying for God to help us through it’.  We do not know all that God has for us to do, and sometimes it may be a training session.  Paul, writing to the Church of Corinth said, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-4.  God has callings on all our lives, and who are we to say that these callings are not for us to suffer so we can comfort someone in the same way as God does comforted us? 

William Funkhouser MDiv, ThD, Founder and President of True Devotion Ministries.