He Delivers

Psalm 34:17

The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles.

Yesterday we read how the Lord hears our voice in the morning.

But in this verse we read how he not only hears…he delivers us from trouble.

We are the righteous – the ones who have been forgiven – the ones who stand clean in his presence – and he hears our prayers.

It’s great to be heard, when someone listens.  It heals temporarily as we unload our troubles onto someone else’s shoulder.  But if those troubles follow us and take up residence in our homes, we have to keep unloading often, keep sharing, keep looking for that listening ear.

God is the One who can actually deliver us. So it makes sense that he is the one to whom we should cry out, because he hears AND helps.

Trouble isn’t always our circumstances.  God doesn’t always deliver us from situations.  But he has promised to give us peace and assurance to rise above those situations in faith and peace and rest.

His deliverance doesn’t always look like a helicopter landing where he whisks us away to a foreign beach for a romping good time on the sand.

His deliverance does look like a mighty arm that stretches out to save us and bring us close to his chest, under his wing, in his shadow, where we are at peace from the storm that rages around us.

Then he enters the middle of the storm and speaks, so that even the winds and the waves obey him.