Overwhelmed

 "I cry out to the Lord, I plead for the Lord's mercy. I pour out my complaints before Him and tell Him all my troubles. For I am overwhelmed......" Psalm 142:1-3

Overwhelmed. I think that's how many feel today. Overwhelmed by our problems, needs, and pressures. Overwhelmed by life. The result of this is paralysis. We may continue to move about through our daily lives, but our souls, emotions, even our spirits, are paralyzed, crippled, held prisoner. Is there any hope, any way out of this place?

The above Scripture gives the picture of David being surrounded by his troubles, needs, circumstances, and fears. They were with him all the time. When he awoke, as he went through his day, and when he sought sleep at night. They were a constant presence and pressure. Jesus knows this place well. In Gethsemane, which means oil press, He cried out, "My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death." He was overwhelmed, surrounded by the intensity of what was to take place in His life. And Satan was present to seek to bring Him to despair. We come to our own Gethsemane, our own oil press. Maybe you're in one right now. Surrounded, pressured, overwhelmed by conditions and circumstances that won't relent, back off, or go away. Is there a way out? David the earthly king and Christ the eternal One tell us that there is. It is found in Him.

Beth Moore says that in these times, He takes us into His Intensive Care. Times when it is just us and Him. There is no one else because no one else is able to lead us through the intensity of our personal "oil press." Today, where might you need His intensive care? Overwhelmed, surrounded, alone, yet not alone at all. David called his friends and counselors, but try as they may, they couldn't help him. Jesus called His disciples to come and pray with Him, but they slept. They were alone, yet they were not alone for the Father called them into His "ICU." He calls you, us, as well.

David begins verse three of this Psalm saying he is overwhelmed, but he finishes with "You alone know the way I should turn." In the oil press, in the place of overwhelming pressure and pain, the Father knows the way through and out. He will bring us out victorious, whole, and free. The oil press the enemy meant to use for our destruction is instead a vessel used of God to take us into a deeper, stronger, more beautiful walk with Him. At the end of the Psalm, David says, "The godly will crowd around me for You treat me kindly." David, once overwhelmed, had now overcome. Jesus, overwhelmed in the garden, emerged to take on and conquer sin and death. In Him, we may do so as well.

If you're overwhelmed today, haunted by that which never leaves you, know that all of it has been overcome by He who overwhelms the overwhelming. What the enemy means to crush you with, He means to use to lead you to Himself. He calls you to His intensive care. Don't fear to enter in. Overcome the overwhelming..

Blessings,
Pastor O