When Life Tries to Overwhelm YouSýnishorn

GOD’S WORD CAN LIFT THE GLOOM

Not long ago I was struggling with some things in my life, and my head was all tangled up in the wrong place. Things weren’t going the way I expected, fear was entering in, people were bugging me, and I felt stuck. Besides all that, I was facing something I just didn’t want to do, and a gloom sort of settled on me like a wet blanket.

I was about an hour into my self-hosted pity party when all of a sudden the words I had read from Psalm 136 during my morning devotions popped into my mind: “Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.”

If you’ve ever read that Psalm, you know it has 26 verses and every single verse ends with the words, “His mercy endures forever.” It can be a little redundant while you’re reading it, but if God says something that many times, I think He’s trying to get a point across to us!

At the time I read it, I was a little impatient and the words just seemed to bounce off of me, but when they came back to me later during my pity party, all of a sudden they went off in my spirit like—wow! His mercy endures forever! He is so good! Everything is going to be okay! Wow!

It’s hard to describe spiritual things in natural words, but all I can say is: it was definitely a wonderful moment. God’s joy coursed through me, the gloom lifted, and I was filled with the knowledge that I would not only survive this day, but I would come through with flying colors—I was on the victory side!

Nehemiah 8:10 says, “…the joy of the Lord is your strength” —I was filled with God’s strength and I could do nothing but praise Him. I knew everything was going to work out fine.