Groaning… ‘anachah’. A moaning or sighing response brought on by physical, spiritual, or mental despair involving both the body and soul.
“I am worn out from groaning, all night long I flood my bed with weeping…” (David in Ps. 6:6)
Bless David’s heart. This is the same guy who stood with only a slingshot and stones to face a literal giant from an enemy army. I just love how God has given us so many people whose lives we can learn from…people who are the same as me. And you. These characters in the Bible aren’t super-heros. They aren’t from another planet endowed with supernatural powers. They just serve a super-natural God…the God I serve. The God you serve.
David had a lot on his mind when he wrote this Psalm. And I am so thankful that he was so brutally honest. He pours his heart out, in tears, completely honest with the God whose love he was so secure in. He didn’t feel inclined to paint a prettier picture and pretend it was real. He didn’t fake it. He didn’t deny what he felt. He faced it within himself and took it to God. All the ugly of it…
Paul teaches this in 2 Cor. 10:5. “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive EVERY thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (my emphasis)
This thing doesn’t happen by accident…this taking captive every thought…(or any thought at all!) I believe it is an ‘on purpose’ thing. We have to realize FIRST just what our thoughts are…and we can be wrong !
“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9)
We can not know and trust our own heart. For we don’t know what may lie there, Peter certainly didn’t. He, like David, was brave. He proceeded to attack when the soldiers came following Judas, to take Jesus from the garden. Then during the long night ahead, Peter hid like a scared animal and swore he didn’t know Jesus. “Then he began to call down curses on himself and he swore to them, ‘I don’t know the man!!’ ” (Mt. 26:74)
I wonder how many nights Peter might have groaned all night, weeping in his bed. Regret. Sorrow. Shame.
Not many. I don’t think so anyway.. “Don’t be alarmed…you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He has risen !…go, tell his disciples….and Peter…” (Mark 16:6,7)
“…he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve.” (1 Cor. 15:5)
That is the Jesus I love.
