“Be merciful to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and my body with grief. My life is consumed by anguish and my years are groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak.” Psalm 31:9-10
I’d like to ask for you to pray for a family today. I was in Orlando, Florida on a school trip when my wife, Susan, called early Sunday morning. “You’ve got to go see Steven,” she told me. Steven Hayes was in the seventh grade when I first started teaching. He and an incredible group of boys played on the first basketball team I ever coached. For the past eleven years he has been the boys’ varsity basketball coach at a small high school in central Florida.
On Saturday evening, Steven’s 10-year-old son was hit by a car and killed. I spent five hours with Steven and his family and friends Sunday afternoon. I can’t describe the pain and sorrow. A father and mother and ninth grade sister wonder how they can go on. They say two to three hundred people visited the hospital Saturday night; five to six hundred people gathered at their school on Sunday; a thousand came to the visitation last night; and I don’t know how many are presently attending the funeral as I write this note. We are all helpless… but God is not helpless. This is why I am asking you to pray. Pray for this family and all the friends and the whole community.
David was honest in his songs. In the first two verses of Psalm 28, he cries for mercy. In the last two verses, he tells what he knows to be true about our Father in Heaven.
“To you I call, O Lord my Rock; do not turn a a deaf ear to me. For if you remain silent, I will be like those who have gone down to the pit. Hear my cry for mercy as I call to you for help, as I lift up my hands toward your Most Holy Place.” Psalm 28:1-2
“The Lord is the strength of his people, a fortress of salvation for his anointed one. Save your people and bless your inheritance; be their shepherd and carry them forever.” Psalm 28:8-9