“My eyes long for Your promise. I ask, ‘When will You comfort me?”
– Psalm 119:82
What a great, honest prayer and question before God here in Psalm 119:82, to say, “my eyes long for Your promise,” O God. “I ask you, ‘When will You comfort me?'” Like we can all identify times in our lives where we need comfort. We’re wondering why certain things are happening the way they’re happening. And our longing in those moments is for God’s promise, the fulfillment of God’s promise. Like Romans 8:28, God promises to work all things together for the good of those who love Him, have been called according to His purpose. But there are times when we long to see that promise. Like, “God, what is the good You are working in this? When will You work this together for good? When will You comfort me? My eyes long to see Your promise in action.”
Responding To Chris Story
So, as we are praying for specific needs in a lot of this pandemic, people sending in prayer requests to radical.net/prayerrequests, let me encourage you to continue to do that, I read this and it’s actually pretty long and I can’t read at all. But from Chris in Tennessee, he’s an elder at a church there and serves as COO at a local hospital. And long story short, in mid-March came down with a fever. At this time in his area, there had been hardly any reported cases of COVID-19, but he ended up getting tested, quarantined in his basement away from his wife and his kids, doing FaceTime dinners with them, and then found out he was positive.
And so obviously was sick, was further quarantined away from his family. It was all pretty perplexing because in the area around him, hardly anybody had been sick, even all kinds of questions about where he could have gotten this? And so he found himself in that basement, just asking why, why, why? As he developed cardiac issues, as he just, yeah, obviously experienced a lot of physical struggle as a result of COVID-19.
God’s Promise
Well, by God’s grace, he came through it and then his healthcare organization was selected to take part in a clinical trial using plasma from recovered patients to treat those who are most critically ill from the virus. The problem was they were trying to find people who they could use, whose plasma could be used, for helping save other people’s lives. And there were just such a small number of people who could qualify for that. And Chris qualified.
So he wrote actually this request in sitting in a donor clinic as he’s donating plasma that is going to be helpful in others who are struggling with this virus. And he said, “I just sat there and remembered God’s promise, that God does indeed work things together in ways we don’t see, particularly in the moment, that will lead to good for those who love Him and have been called according to His purpose.” So he even sent a picture in of tuning in to Secret Church while donating COVID-19 convalescent plasma.
Psalm 119:82, Asking God for Comfort
So I want to praise God, lead us to praise God, and lead us to trust God in light of Psalm 119:82. God, our eyes long for Your promise. We ask, when will You comfort? I ask God, when will You bring an end to this pandemic? You alone have the power to do that. God we praise You even for news of different drugs and medicines that might be helpful in treatment. We know all of that is evidence of Your grace.
God we pray for more to You. We pray for Your provision. God, we pray that You would use all this work that’s being done, taking plasma from those who have recovered to help those who haven’t. God, that’s all evidence of Your grace. And so, as we walk through these days, we say we long for Your promise. We long to see You work all this together for the good of those who loves You and have been called according to Your purpose.
God, we long for You to lead many, many more people.
Please, oh, God lead many more people to know Your love, to trust in You during these days, to know Your promises, to know the comfort that only comes ultimately from You. God, we praise You for your grace in Chris. We praise You for sustaining him, his wife, their kids, as they walk through, it’s such a challenging month. We praise You for the restoration of his health. And we praise You for using that to help others, even their pain to bring help to others. God, thank You for the way You are working. Thank You for this glimpse into how You’re working. And we trust. We trust it even right now, amidst all that each one of us is going through, You are working.
So we say with trust, with faith, with love for You, our eyes long for Your promise. And we ask when will You comfort us? And as we ask that, we trust that You will. We know this is true because of who Jesus is, what He has done on the cross for us, how You have saved us from our sins for eternity. We place all our trust in You and Your ultimate comfort. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
