A Few thoughts On: Consolation

A few nights ago during family worship, we read Psalm 94, and this small section stood out to me:

"If the Lord had not been my help,

my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence.

When I thought, 'my foot slips,'

your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up.

When the cares of my heart are many,

your consolations cheer my soul."

And as I thought more about it, I realized how often I don't practice this.

Generally, when I feel anxious or nervous about something, I tend to read a magazine, garden, or really do anything to get my mind off of that certain thing.

Right now it is taking the driving test to get my license. But it could be anything.

Actually, I get pretty nervous when taking any test.

You can put me in front of the whole world and I won't feel anything but excitement.

Tell me to socialize with a stranger and I'm off learning their life story.

But ask me to go to the creepy DPS office, and I feel the butterflies the minute I walk outside.

This past week, my parents and I have been driving down to the office nearly everyday to try and get my license, and nearly everyday the line is ten people out the door. Obviously I'm not that worried about getting it done :) Each time we drive there I have to mentally calm myself down and concentrate on the yummy LaraBar I put in my purse as an incentive for passing.

Is that silly?

However, after reading that section, particularly:

When the cares of my heart are many,

your consolations cheer my soul.

Instead of trying to forget or push something to the back of my mind, I ought to be going to the Lord in prayer.

And not only for the "weighty" matters, but also the seemingly trivial ones...like getting taking a driving test.

Now I can't say that I practice this all of the time now, but thankfully the Lord is always sanctifying me. My prayer now is that He would bring me into different testing circumstances so that I might be able to be consoled by Him. Which really is so much better than reading a book or trying to forget.

"There is no pit so deep that He is not deeper still."

~Corrie Ten Boom