Through Trial To Triumph

by JARVIS, A. | Category: Old Testament Insights Into Prayer | May 2003

It is, I suppose, only natural that, as Christians, we have a tendency to resort to prayer most often when we are in trouble or have a particularly pressing need. We can sometimes find ourselves turning to God only as a last resort when our own efforts have failed to resolve the situation in which we find ourselves. Paul exhorts us to pray without ceasing at all times and in all circumstances, not just when the going gets rough! And, of course, the fact remains that God does help us when trouble strikes. In this article we will look at some examples of those who could confirm this fact from their own personal experience; those who 'prayed through' their times of trial and looked back in wonder on the depths of their earlier despair from the triumphant high ground of answered prayers.

The Sons of Korah were speaking from experience when they sang:

'God is our refuge and strength,

an ever-present help in trouble' (Ps.46:1 NIV).

They had found that their God didn't sit watching from the sidelines while they struggled with their trials; rather, He was there alongside them in the thick of the action when trouble struck. We can share this same experience - just like the saints in Ephesus who had discovered that their Lord was one 'who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands' (Rev.2:1). This suggests not just the certainty of involved help, but also its timeliness.

David experienced the immediacy of God's help on numerous occasions. He recalls in Psalm 138 that,

'In the day when I cried out,

You answered me' (v.3).

Again, this can be our experience, as it was Peter's. When he began to sink beneath the waves over which he had previously been walking with such confidence, his Master's response to his despairing cry was immediate: one second he was drowning; the next he was safe in the boat! How often we come across the word 'immediately' in the Gospel writings! Whether stilling the raging tempest, quietening the raving demoniac, restoring the sight of the blind, or returning the dead to life, the Lord's help was 'immediate'.

Our experiences automatically colour our future expectations. Thus the Psalmist could write:

'I will lift up my eyes to the hills -

From whence comes my help?

My help comes from the LORD,

Who made heaven and earth' (Ps.121:1,2).

There was no doubt that help would come. It had in the past; and would again in the future. The writer to the Hebrews encourages us to have similar expectations when exhorting us to 'approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need' (Heb.4:16 NIV). So we can approach our times of personal trial with certainty and confidence based on His promises and our experience. As Paul reminds us, 'He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?' (Rom. 8:32). So let us never feel that it is somehow 'wrong' to pray when we're in trouble!

Praying to the Lord in times of trial and tribulation, and living through them to their triumphal resolution, was an experience that never left Asaph. In Psalm 77, he recalls the circumstances in which he turned to the Lord for help:

'When I was in distress, I sought the Lord' (v.2 NIV).

He also shares with us his past experience of answered prayers:

'"I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High."

I will remember the works of the LORD;

Surely I will remember Your wonders of old. �

You have with Your arm redeemed Your people' (vv.10,11,15).

What a deep well of experience Asaph had to draw from!

David, as we have already thought, had lived through more than his fair share of troubles! And his reminiscences are enlightening, with expectation of deliverance being built on the foundation of answered prayers. On the run from Saul, he articulated his philosophy in Psalm 18.

'I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised;

So shall I be saved from my enemies' (v.3)

And we can almost hear the amazement in his voice as he recalls how

'He delivered me, because He delighted in me' (v.19).

He expresses the same personal view in Psalm 54:

'I will praise Your name, O LORD, for it is good.

For He has delivered me out of all trouble' (vv. 6,7).

Despite all David's faults and failures the Lord never declined to deliver him from all his (many) troubles; indeed, he delighted to do so! It will be the same with us when we call on Him to save us in our time of need. He won't turn a deaf ear because of our numerous faults and many past failures, but will answer us according to His great, unlimited love and boundless mercy!

It was the same story some years later, when David was being pursued by his rebellious son Absalom. In Psalm 3 he says:

'LORD, how they have increased who trouble me!

Many are they who rise up against me' (v.1).

David was going through another of those times when everything was going wrong; when it felt as if the whole world was against him. Perhaps we've also felt like that at times. If so, let us draw encouragement from David. Buoyed up by his past experiences, he says with complete confidence:

'I cried to the LORD with my voice,

And He heard me from His holy hill.

I lay down and slept;

I awoke, for the LORD sustained me' (vv.4,5).

The hymn writer captures the point perfectly:

Peace, perfect peace, with sorrows surging round?

On Jesus' bosom nought but peace is found.

Time and again throughout his life David could say with utter conviction:

'Praise be to the LORD, for he has heard my cry for mercy' (Ps. 28:6 NIV).

David never felt unable to call on the Lord for help and his life bore wonderful testimony to the power of prayer. Neither was he inhibited from calling out for help when the trouble in which he found himself was largely of his own making! Like Jonah, whose most graphic prayer was uttered whilst actually inside the great fish:

'"When my soul fainted within me,

I remembered the LORD;

And my prayer went up to You,

Into Your holy temple. �

I will pay what I have vowed.

Salvation is of the LORD."' (Jonah 2:7,9)

His immediate reaction was to turn to the Lord, confessing his failure and seeking both forgiveness and rescue. As did David, who also discovered that deliverance was not withheld because of disobedience.

The identity of the author of Psalm 116 is not revealed. But we can surely relate to his experience:

'I love the LORD, because He has heard

My voice and my supplications.

Because He has inclined His ear to me,

Therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live' (vv.1,2).

The Psalmist recovers from the disaster of a near-death experience to the triumph of service in God's house:

'For You have delivered my soul from death,

My eyes from tears,

And my feet from falling. �

I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving �

In the courts of the LORD's house' (vv.8,17,19).

We may not be required to face such severe tests as was the Psalmist. But the same remedy is available to us; the same way forward. We, too, have access to a listening God, who delights to answer the prayers of his saints; access through a High Priest who can 'sympathize with our weaknesses', because He 'was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin' (Heb.4:15). With such encouragement to approach the throne of grace, we should never find ourselves in the position described by the hymnwriter:

Oh, what peace we often forfeit,

Oh, what needless pain we bear;

All because we do not carry

Everything to God in prayer.

I recall some words from one of Tennyson's poems:

'More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.'

Spot on aren't they? Let us prove them true in our own experience; and let us take to ourselves David's wonderful claim: 'He delivered me because he delighted in me.'

JARVIS, A. | May 2003
Old Testament Insights Into Prayer