“Call upon Me in the day of trouble. ”
Psalm 50:15
DAYS OF TROUBLE. Hours of crisis. Moments of urgent and fearful need. They come to us all unexpectedly, like a thief in the night. How can we prepare for such times?
We can prepare by being ready to cry aloud to the Lord for His saving help, boldly expecting His deliverance. God invites and expects His beloved ones to do exactly that: “Call upon Me in the day of trouble, ” He tells us; “I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.” 40
Many of us find it humiliating and difficult to cry out for help in times of trouble. Especially men! We prefer to be known as rugged, self-sufficient types. We don’t want to ask for directions until were hopelessly lost. We’d rather endure tenaciously in the face of insurmountable odds and then conclude with pride, I did it!
But God’s ways are often opposite to our lines of reasoning. He wants us to come to the conclusion, God did it!
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He asks that we recognize our weakness in order to experience His strength, so we can say with Paul, “When I am weak, then I am strong.” 41 And there’s no better way to express our weakness than to honestly cry out to God for deliverance in times of trouble.
It takes a lot of humility to cry aloud to God in our distress.
And humility before the living God is precisely what we need.
GETTING OUR ATTENTION
To all His children who cry aloud for help in desperate moments, God still demonstrates again and again that He “is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. ’ 42
When a farmer in Michigan became prosperous, he rewarded himself with the most efficient, high-powered tractor he could buy. He was using it one day with a conveyor belt to lift crops into a barn loft. Suddenly his sleeve caught in the mechanism, and he was jerked into the path of the large wheel. He realized that in only seconds he would be crushed to death, as had happened to a neighbor in a similar accident only a few weeks before.
He cried out in a loud voice, “O God, save me!”
At that instant the engine stalled. A farmhand came running out and helped free the man from the belt mechanism. They checked the engine, but could find no plausible, mechanical reason for the stall. Together they realized that God had stopped the engine in response to the farmers cry.
As the farmer publicly gave this report, he also acknowledged that before this experience he hadn’t felt his need for the Lord because things were going so well for him. Now he realized that every day was a gift from the Lord; he knew he was “a dead man on furlough.”
In so many ways, God continues to teach us to be faithful in crying out for His help in our difficulties.
On a wintry day, a father was driving on a southern Illinois highway to visit his son at his university. Suddenly his vehicle began spinning out of control on a patch of ice he hadn’t seen, and he was headed for the roadside ditch. He cried out, “O God, deliver me!” Then it was as if a giant hand righted the car back on the road.
The father rejoiced in this deliverance and continued driving. About twenty minutes later, he hit another patch of ice and spun out of control. This time he simply exclaimed,
‘ Oh, no!”—and his vehicle ended up in the ditch. What was God teaching him?
A teenage boy, who stated openly that he didn’t believe in God, was asked why. “Our family was going through a very hard time,” he explained, “and I prayed that God would help us—but nothing happened.”
On the other hand, in another family with a teenager, the father had been out of work for more than a year; though he was actively seeking employment, and his family prayed consistently for a job for him. His teenage daughter
discussed the family’s problem with me, and I suggested some ideas for employment for her father. She then passed along these ideas to him.
In response, he carefully explained why each suggestion wouldn’t work. The girl’s hopes for a solution vanished.
Later that day, she walked out to a quiet place, where she did more than pray. She cried out, “O God, deliver my father from unemployment!” The next day her father was offered an excellent job and started to work immediately. The father in another family had this testimony:
I was $20,000 in debt with unsecured loans. For two years I had been trying to sell some land to cover the debt, but I couldn’t even get a phone call of interest.
I tried realtor after realtor without success.
Finally, in desperation, I walked into the woods and cried, u O God!” That’s all that came out. My voice failed as emotion flooded me, and I groaned in my spirit.
The next day, a couple told my wife they’d heard we had land for sale. Within twenty-four hours of crying out, we had an agreement to sell the land for $20,000. Praise God! We are now debt-free and living by God’s financial principles.
By crying aloud in the day of trouble, we follow in the steps of Christ, our teacher. For Jesus, the “day of trouble” came
most heavily that late night in Gethsemane and in the succeeding hours that ended with His death on the cross. Facing a time more troubling than any we could ever imagine, Jesus cried aloud.
By crying out, we also follow the example of many others in Scripture.
Psalm 102 is titled “A Prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed and pours out his complaint before the LORD.” Those words afflicted and overwhelmed may not carry much weight for you at this moment; they’re easy to read over lightly. But the hour comes in each of our lives when words like that leap out at us and catch exactly our heart’s condition. In that very moment, we can confidently call out to God, just as the psalmist did:
Hear my prayer, O LORD,
And let my cry come to You.
Do not hide Your face from me in the day of my
trouble;
Incline Your ear to me;
In the day that I call, answer me speedily : 43
The disciples of Jesus knew what it was like to feel overwhelmed by trouble. One day on the Sea of Galilee, as wind and water battered their boat, they realized this was no ordinary storm. Their vessel was filling fast with water, and they fully expected to drown. Jesus was in the boat with them, yet somehow remained fast asleep.
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Reaching total desperation—feeling afflicted and overwhelmed—they cried out to Him: “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” Only then did Jesus act to still the storm. 44
So it is many times with us: Only when we cry out to Him in desperation does He calm the storms in our lives.
DESPERATE MOMENTS
It was the same for Peter on another occasion on the Sea of Galilee, as he was actually walking on the water toward Jesus, at his Lord’s invitation. “But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, 'Lord, save me! ” At the moment of Peter’s cry, “immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him.” 45
Jonah’s “day of trouble” landed him in the belly of a great fish, and even there he managed to let his voice sound forth. ‘7 cried out to the LORD because of my affliction, and He answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and You heard my voice. ” 46
Throughout their generations in the Promised Land, the nation of Israel faced impossible circumstances for survival in desperate conflicts with the well-armed forces of their pagan enemies. But as they lifted their voices to beseech the Lord, He delivered them. “ They cried out to God in the battle. He heeded their prayer, because they put their trust in Him.” 47
TOO TROUBLED TO PRAY?
Some people speak of times when their personal circumstances are so oppressive and despairing that they cannot even pray silently—let alone cry out to God.
Perhaps their condition can be compared to that of Heman the Ezrahite, who wrote a psalm which is the darkest and most depressed chapter in all the Psalms. He described his situation with phrases like these: “full of troubles...near to the grave...adrift among the dead...in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the depths...shut up, and I cannot get out.. .afflicted and ready to die.. .distraught.. .engulfed.” 48
He was entirely alone and abandoned, and his closing line in this psalm is translated with these words (in various Scripture versions): “My companions have become darkness”; “There is only darkness everywhere”; “My acquaintances are in darkness.” 49 May we ourselves never have to experience such total gloom!
Yet even in this dungeon of depression, look what this man in faith was able to do and say:
His psalm begins,
O LORD, God of my salvation,
I have cried out day and night before You.
Let my prayer come before You;
Incline Your ear to my cry.
Before God, he could testify this:
LORD, I have called daily upon You;
I have stretched out my hands to You.
And this:
But to You I have cried out, O Lord,
And in the morning my prayer comes before You. 50
From this troubled man’s personal journal were wise to learn that we never face a darkness so deep that we cannot cry out to God.
GOD HEARS THOSE IN GREAT NEED
We see in Scripture that the greater someone’s helplessness and need, the more God seems to emphasize His commitment to hear their cry in trouble. God affirms His special concern for the fatherless, widows, strangers (foreigners), and the poor—people with exceptional needs and crises that others do not experience.
God testified to Moses that if oppressed widows and orphans called out to Him, “I will surely hear their cry. ”' )1 Solomon said that God “will deliver the needy when he cries, the poor also, and him who has no helper.” 52
God’s compassion in such cases of special hardship is something He expects us to share as well. He tells us, “Whoever shuts his ears to the cry of the poor will also cry himself
and not be heard.” 53 And He warned Moses and the people at Sinai, “You shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child. If you afflict them in any way, and they cry at all to Me, I will surely hear their cry; and My wrath will become hot, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless.” 54 He likewise warned them not to withhold wages or otherwise oppress a poor hired servant, “lest he cry out against you to the LORD, and it be sin to you.” 55
God is utterly serious about hearing those in destitution who cry out to Him in their trouble!
KNOW AND BELIEVE
So, from Scripture you can know this and believe it in every difficulty you face: God delights in showing Himself strong on behalf of anyone who is facing an impossible situation and who will cry out for His deliverance.
As you cry aloud to Him...
May the LORD answer you in the day of trouble;
May the name of the God of Jacob defend you. 56
Joints to Jhmcfer
Think of two areas in your personal life where you have felt totally helpless to make a change. Take those two points of weakness and cry out to the Lord for wisdom, strength, and deliverance!
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