I lie in the dust, completely discouraged; revive me by your word.-- Psalm 119:25
How many of you, my friends, can take up and sigh David's lament. You feel a deadness, a dullness, and a profound earthliness in spiritual enjoyments, duties, privileges; in which your soul should be vitally alive: full of ferver and love. Yet you are low where you ought to be elevated; you grovel where you ought to soar; you cleave to the earth where you ought to be embracing the heavens. Your thoughts are low; your affections are low; your feelings are low; your spirits are low; and you seem almost ready to question the existence of the life of God in your soul.
However, even in this condition of lowness, and spiritual depression, there is that ray of light, and a recognition of the Truth in David's prayer that is encouraging, and hopeful. "My soul cleaves unto the dust: quicken me." -- David's seeking, even panting, after the requickening of the Divine life of his soul: "Revive me, Lord, renew Your work in my soul, and strengthen that which You have wrought in me. The love that congeals, the faith that trembles, the hope that fluctuates, the joy that droops; inspire with new life, new energy, and new power! Here is that which marked him a man of God. He was a living man complaining of his deadness, and breathing, sobbing, with his whole being, after more life. His was a heaven-born soul lamenting its earthliness, and panting after more of heaven. David was a spiritual man mourning over his carnality, and praying for more spirituality. His is the prayer of one who is conscious of the low state of His soul, and who is repulsed and unsatisfied with this state.
"I lie in the dust, completely discouraged; revive me by your word." Perhaps no expression is more familiar to the ear, and no acknowledgment is more frequently on the lips of believers, than this. My friends, we often come away from our daily contact, and conflict with the world, bruised, bleeding, or crushed; and as this pattern repeats itself over and over again; we sometimes lack the energy to rise above it. Our armor is seemingly pierced by our own fatigue. Here, is the whole lesson contained in David's experience -- that while deep lamentation filled his heart, and an honest confession breathed from his lips, there was also a breathing, a panting of the soul, after a higher and a better state. He seemed to say–"Lord, I am bruised and prostrate, but I long to rise; I am fettered, but I struggle to be free; my soul cleaves to the dust, but quicken me, that I may rise above it!"
But you see, they key to his prayer, and to God's reviving his spirit is in the conflict -- the will and the efforts to emerge from the dust, to break away from the enthrallment, and soar into a higher and more pure state of grace. Alas! there are so many from whose lips this confession all too smoothly glides, while they almost embrace the dust, and even seem to love the dust, and they never stretch their spiritual pinions to rise above it.
This prayer states clearly, what is so needful in so many, and is required by all of us at one time or another; a lifting of the soul, that we may regain our perspective, and our equilibrium. To regain our vigor, our joy, and our hope; we need to ascend to the Throne of Him whose love once transformed our souls. Only here, my friends, can we find that refreshment, that nourishment we cannot live without. I will heal them..., I will love them freely; I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. Those who dwell under My shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine. This is His promise to quicken and revive you, to shed the dews of His grace upon your soul, thus moistening and nourishing the roots and fibers and fruits of the life planted within you, to lift you out and above the dust of our daily walk.
Through prayer, and the Living Word of God; our Lord quickens the soul. The Word of Christ is "spirit and life," therefore it is a quickening Word. "This is my comfort in my affliction; for Your Word has quickened me." Again, "I will never forget Your precepts; for with them You have quickened me." Therefore did Yeshua pray to His Father in behalf of all His lambs, "Sanctify them through Your truth." To sanctify, my friends, is to quicken.
Oh Heavenly Father, we so often need the renewing of our souls; yet do we still seek Thy hand to quicken, and revive us in Your power; quicken Your work in our souls, and strengthen that which You have wrought in us. In all our spiritual relapses, too, may the word of the Lord quicken us. May it, like Your mighty hand, raise our souls from the dust to which we so often cleave. We thank you, and we praise you; for you alone art God. In the name of Yeshua we pray. Amen.
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