When You’re In Over Your Head

The message was brought by Rev. Donnie White.

Psalms 130: ¹Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. ² Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. ³ If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? ⁴ But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. ⁵ I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope. ⁶ My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning. ⁷ Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. ⁸ And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

I’m not a swimmer. I don’t get along well with water.  When I was younger I went into a pool thinking the water was only a few feet deep and soon I was over my head.  It happens quickly.  Life too can overwhelm you very quickly and you find yourself in over your head.  What do you do?  This psalm shows us some things we can do.

Look back at verse 2.  Keep praying for God to come to your rescue.  Lots of things cause us anguish.  Just keep calling on God.  Remember Jonah.  The crew threw him overboard and the fish took him to the depths of the sea.  What did he do?  He cried unto God.  Supplications are our earnest, heartfelt prayer to someone—God—who is greater than we are.  When you’re in over your head, keep praying.

Verses 3 and 4 tell us to stand on God’s salvation.  I’m glad we can be forgiven.  God also forgets our sin.  He doesn’t mark our iniquities.  The devil remembers them. We remember them.  God does not.  I read a story of a preacher being questioned about salvation.  The person couldn’t understand how someone could do it.  He put a pencil in his hand and asked if that pencil could stand.  The man said no.  The preacher picked it up and stood it up straight and said sure it can.  I just have to help it.  The answer is we can’t do it on our own.  God makes the difference.  He helps us to stand.  When you’re in over your head, trust in him.  Learn that the devil is a liar.  We have truth.

Verse 5 tells us to keep looking to the Word.  Do you know what one word can sum up the Word of God?  It’s love.  It’s more than emotion, more than a feeling.  It’s action.  People fall in and out of love all the time.  They don’t understand what it means.  John 3:16 can be seen at just about every sports event.  For God so loved the world that he gave.  The Word binds us to God.  It is forever settled in heaven.  Lean on it.

Verses 7 and 8 show us the psalmist’s desire was for all Israel to know the Lord and the peace of having sins forgiven.  There is mercy in the cross.  The greatest event ever known looked like the world’s greatest tragedy.  Imagine how the disciples must have felt.  They thought Jesus would be King and now he was dead.  They watched him die and moped around three days.  The women went to the grave on Sunday morning.  They had already resolved in their mind that Jesus was dead BUT God was ahead of them.  The stone was rolled away and he was alive.  Nothing in our life catches God by surprise.

If you’re not in the depths now, you will be at some time or another.  Keep crying out to God.  Keep standing on his promises.  Keep looking to the Word.  People are watching.  What we do can make an impact.  When we’re in over our head, just keep on trusting God and striving to get others to him.