⁴ Return, O Lord, rescue my soul;
Save me because of Your lovingkindness.
⁵ For there is no mention of You in death;
In Sheol who will give You thanks?

⁶ I am weary with my sighing;
Every night I make my bed swim,
I dissolve my couch with my tears.
⁷ My eye has wasted away with grief;
It has become old because of all my adversaries.

⁸ Depart from me, all you who do iniquity,
For the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping.
⁹ The Lord has heard my supplication,
The Lord receives my prayer.
¹⁰ All my enemies will be ashamed and greatly dismayed;
They shall ^[e]turn back, they will suddenly be ashamed.

(After many months, I am finally returning to my Psalm a Day project with Psalm 6).

What I love about this Psalm is the transparency in which David approaches the Lord.  He begins by seeking the mercy of God sensing that the Lord may be displeased with him (v.1).  His circumstances are causing him to call out to God asking for grace and healing (v.2).  Do you ever look at your life and feel confused, try to make sense of things because things have not unfolded like you planned?  This appears to be what David is wrestling with as he says that his soul is greatly dismayed (v.3).  One thing I think is important here is that David, in his distress, seeks God alone in his anguish (v.4).  I think this is an important first step in all of life’s situations as we have a tendency to call a friend, find a book, seek worldly counsel or even Google, but David calls out to the Lord, knowing the character of God, he appeals to the lovingkindness of the Lord (v.5).  “I am weary”, I am done, I am tired, I lay in bed at night and cry in the dark (v.6) and I am just tired of it (v.7).  After his appeal to God, David redirects his speech to his adversaries, affirming the faithfulness of God (v.8).  This is a great demonstration of faith, a confidence in the God of our salvation.

I love this Psalm because it takes me to familiar places when the world just seemed upside down, but in those days of dismay, seasons of sorrow, times of grief, is when our faith is refined by God in the furnace of affliction (Isaiah 48:10).  Psalm 6 reminds us that when we go through troubling times, when the deep waters of the world make us feel like we are drowning (Psalm 42:6-7), it is our faith in the God who is faithful that delivers us through the night (Psalm 42:8).  This Psalm encourages me because it reminds me to redirect my focus from my circumstances to the God who is sovereign over my circumstances, and that is where we find the peace of Christ which enables us to stand firm (Philippians 4:1) and find grace to walk through the fire.