Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul.
Save me, O God, is a desperate plea for rescue that pictures affliction and overwhelming distress as deep floodwaters coming into the soul and rising over the head, leaving a person feeling oppressed and on the verge of sinking. The waters can be a tide of oppression from fellow believers, when crushing trials, privation, toil and sickness are joined by envy, jealousy, unjust suspicion, evil-surmising, false insinuations, and undeserved burdens and censure. That wound cuts deeply even when kindness has been shown to the accusers, for the deep waters threaten to overflow and cause sinking. The same waters describe feeling as if deep waters are going over the head when conflicts, anxiety, care, wearisome labor, and mastering circumstances press in. They also describe times when the billows of temptation seem about to go over the head, which belong to present testing by smaller trials and crosses and not to martyrdom, for which the spirit of the martyrs is not now given.
Such oppression leaves the wounded crushed, borne down and weak, unable to sleep or rest, spending sleepless hours in agonizing tears and mourning before the Lord, and feeling that giving up the work is the only relief. In such times the eye of God is watching over the afflicted, and they are to be willing to endure all the trials He sees fit to send. Being saved from that place means light shining amid darkness, with sweet comfort and peace taking the place of sadness and discouragement. The cry for saving is met by God not forsaking in extremity but sustaining to continue the work, revealing through vision that the opposition is Satan working through agents.
Those guilty of such opposition must bear the burden and retrace every step in confession or rest under the frown of God, because speaking and acting against His called workers is speaking and acting against Him, and every suspicion, jealousy, and secret influence is faithfully chronicled in heaven until put away. The hymn picture of billows and a raging tempest echoes this distress and presents Jesus as the refuge to whom a soul in danger can flee. Even when strength is failing and death is near, God's presence makes the dying saint's chamber holy, and patient endurance and joyful constancy sustained by unseen power testify to the Christian faith and Saviour, for afflictions can refine and prepare a person for heaven.
Save me, O God, is a desperate plea for rescue that pictures affliction and overwhelming distress as deep floodwaters coming into the soul and rising over the head, leaving a person feeling oppressed and on the verge of sinking. The waters can be a tide of oppression from fellow believers, when crushing trials, privation, toil and sickness are joined by envy, jealousy, unjust suspicion, evil-surmising, false insinuations, and undeserved burdens and censure. That wound cuts deeply even when kindness has been shown to the accusers, for the deep waters threaten to overflow and cause sinking. The same waters describe feeling as if deep waters are going over the head when conflicts, anxiety, care, wearisome labor, and mastering circumstances press in. They also describe times when the billows of temptation seem about to go over the head, which belong to present testing by smaller trials and crosses and not to martyrdom, for which the spirit of the martyrs is not now given.
Such oppression leaves the wounded crushed, borne down and weak, unable to sleep or rest, spending sleepless hours in agonizing tears and mourning before the Lord, and feeling that giving up the work is the only relief. In such times the eye of God is watching over the afflicted, and they are to be willing to endure all the trials He sees fit to send. Being saved from that place means light shining amid darkness, with sweet comfort and peace taking the place of sadness and discouragement. The cry for saving is met by God not forsaking in extremity but sustaining to continue the work, revealing through vision that the opposition is Satan working through agents.
Those guilty of such opposition must bear the burden and retrace every step in confession or rest under the frown of God, because speaking and acting against His called workers is speaking and acting against Him, and every suspicion, jealousy, and secret influence is faithfully chronicled in heaven until put away. The hymn picture of billows and a raging tempest echoes this distress and presents Jesus as the refuge to whom a soul in danger can flee. Even when strength is failing and death is near, God's presence makes the dying saint's chamber holy, and patient endurance and joyful constancy sustained by unseen power testify to the Christian faith and Saviour, for afflictions can refine and prepare a person for heaven.