Talk to God

President John F. Kennedy said, ‘We stand today on the edge of a new frontier… but the new frontier of which I speak is not a set of promises – it is a set of challenges. It sums up not what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intend to ask of them.’

Life is a set of challenges, problems, and hassles. We sometimes imagine that if we could just deal with the immediate challenge that we are facing, all our problems would be over. But life is not like that. If we resolve one problem, others are just around the corner.

The temptation is to see these challenges as preventing us from carrying out the ministry God has given us. In actual fact, dealing with the problems is the ministry.

The psalmist faced pain and distress. Paul faced false accusations and the frustration of being kept in prison on trumped-up charges. The kings in the Old Testament faced battles and a massive building project challenge.

Talk to God about the problems - Psalm 81:1-7

Are you in a time of testing? God sometimes allows us to be tested, as he allowed his people to be tested by the waters of Meribah (v.7, see also Numbers 20). But he does not want you to face the tests and challenges of life alone. You can talk to him about your problems.

God says, ‘I removed the burden from their shoulders… In your distress, you called and I rescued you’ (v.6a–7a).

‘I took the world off your shoulders,

   freed you from a life of hard labour.

You called to me in your pain;

   I got you out of a bad place’ (v.6–7a, MSG).

Whatever situations or difficulties you may face, you can bring them to God in prayer.

God removed their burdens and rescued them in their distress. The psalmist starts, therefore, with worship, celebration, and joy: ‘Sing for joy to God our strength!’ (v.1).