I Need You

When you need to remember — that You're still my Shepherd.

You can spend so much energy fighting back that you forget how wounded you are inside. Eventually the fight runs out and what is left is just a small, tired version of you that needs help — not a strategy, not a verdict, not a comeback. Just help. You are asking the One whose mercy is good to deal with you for His name's sake — because there is nothing in your case that is going to win it for you.

The pivot from the imprecation is sudden and personal. "But You, O Lord God, deal with me for Your name's sake; because Your mercy is good, deliver me. For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me." That is the move. He stops cataloging what others have done and starts naming what is true about himself: poor, needy, wounded. The line about his body is brutal: "I am gone like a shadow when it lengthens; I am shaken off like a locust. My knees are weak through fasting, and my flesh fails of fatness." The grief took weight. He is also honest about the public ridicule: "I also have become a reproach to them; when they see me, they shake their heads." Their cruelty did not stay private. Then the prayer everyone in the valley needs to know exists: "Help me, O Lord my God; O save me according to Your mercy, that they may know that this is Your hand — that You, Lord, have done it." He wants God's hand to be visible. The close turns into stubborn praise: "I will greatly praise the Lord with my mouth; yes, I will praise Him among the multitude. For He shall stand at the right hand of the poor to save him from those who condemn his soul." The Lord stands at the right hand of the poor. That is where He lives. That is where you can find Him.

• Right now, drop the strategy and pray the simplest prayer in this passage out loud: "Help me, O Lord my God; save me according to Your mercy." • Write this down: "Where have I been faking strength when the truth is that I am poor and needy and wounded?" • Repeat this line when condemnation rises: "He shall stand at the right hand of the poor."

Stop. Breathe. Let the strategy fall away for one minute. Then tell Him exactly how poor and needy you are — out loud if you can.

God, deal with me for Your name's sake, because Your mercy is good — and I do not have a case of my own to win. I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded in places nobody else has seen. Help me. Save me according to Your mercy. Let what You do be visible enough that people know it was Your hand, not mine. You stand at the right hand of the poor — stand at mine. You're still my Shepherd.

The Lord stands at the right hand of the poor — that is where He has always lived.