Because the Psalmist so often gives words to my own heart’s experience, I read the verses as if they were mine, to personalize them. Or as we like to say, “take them to heart.”

The following is what that looks like for Psalm 116 — part of the morning devotional reading we do on the 24th day of each month (reading Psalms 116 through 120). I invite you to open your Bible and read along with me, hoping that what I share about my process will help you make it your own.

My personal take on Verses 1-2:

One of the many reasons I love God is because He listens to my voice when I pray, deliberately leaning in, inclining His ear to hear what I say. He cares. When I speak, He listens. Not because I deserve it, but because He is a Father, Savior and Friend who loves faithfully, and faithful lovers listen.

My personal take on Verses 3-11:

Distress and sorrow press in upon me today. The only way to overcome these is to cry out to the Lord, to call upon Him for help. I’ve been here before, in distresses and sorrows larger and smaller than today. Without fail, when I cry to God I am met with graciousness and compassion. What does that mean?

Graciousness is when He makes it easy for me to come, when He makes it safe for my vulnerable heart to trust Him with my darkest thoughts and weakest parts.

Graciousness is His invitation come receive His compassion. Even if I am the one who planted the seeds of my own distress and sorrow. Even when I am the one who set it all in motion, and now am reaping what I have sown, God is waiting for me with compassion. Like the parent who guided and warned (only to be ignored), God does not withhold His love and compassion from me when I fall and run to Him.

In fact, the Lord is more than gracious and compassionate: He preserves and protects me, the simplehearted (v. 6).

The Hebrew word translated as preserve/protect means to hedge around something, to keep, to guard, to watch over.

However distressed I am, however tough the circumstances, I have been spared something worse, because the Lord has been surrounding me with His protection and watching over me closely.

Due to the total freedom of choice God gives me (and everyone else) stuff will happen, but never apart from His watch care. He preserves my life. He heals me (even when I bring the problem on myself) and restores me to rest and goodness. 

He saves me over and over from the bad behavior of others, and even more often, from my own choices.

I have a part to play in this transaction.

I’m referring to verse seven here. My part is to direct my soul to return to its rest in God’s love and faithfulness.

To not allow my soul languish in hurt, resentment or shame.

To refuse to wallow in being a victim.

Having run to Him, I honestly express whatever is going on in my heart. I pour out all my words, then in the quiet aftermath, I deliberately shift my gaze from the problem and the pain, to Him. To His relentless goodness, to His faithful love. To my confidence that He can and will redeem it all somehow.

I have no doubt that God will make the best of this mess. He will enable my heart to recover. He will heal me. He will guide me with wisdom to respond to the stuff distressing me. My personal history with God tells me so.

Reminding myself of these things restores my heart to its rest in Him.

This is my part, a choice I make, to focus on the only One who can make it all better.

God doesn’t make everything magically go away, but when I take my sorrow and lean against His good heart, a healing begins that will progress as long as I remain there. Jesus said in John 15:9,

“Abide in my love. Remain in it. Live here!”

The longer I live and repeat this process, the more instinctive it becomes, this running to God. I now have a history of having my soul restored from what I thought would destroy it. He has stilled the pain that brought tears so many times. He has kept me from stumbling about, kept me from making things worse with stupid reactions and misguided attempts to hold onto and control the damage.

I don’t often stumble. I walk before the Lord in the land of the living. I walk with Him, seeing His face, hearing His counsel, knowing His heart. This is the life for which Jesus saved me. I will not waste it, and I will not let afflictions steal it.

Verses 12-19:

The end result of this crisis: I am not destroyed. Even if I have been broken — and I have — I have been mended. I am not replaying the crisis over and over in my mind. I have turned to God with a grateful heart, to thank Him.

This is the sacrifice He loves.

That we turn to Him, receive His love in the midst of whatever, and say Thank You, Lord. Thank you for being who you are, every time, without fail. Thank you for saving me again. Thank you for loving me through my stupid choices. Thank you for rescuing me from the choices of others, made in ignorance or selfishness or even evil intent.

Lord, thank you for surrounding me with your love, so that instead of stumbling and falling flat on my face, I always fall into You.